Does Mars Methane Prove Life?

On Earth, methane is something of a villain—a powerful greenhouse gas that is far more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. But it is also a marker of life that emerges from biological processes, such as the digestive systems of cows and termites. So when methane was identified on Mars in 2003 and 2004, efforts were rekindled to seek out life there. A team of researchers today announced another milestone in determining the source of methane on Mars, along with the best next steps to ascertain whether the gas is connected to life or to geologic activity on the Red Planet.

Michael Mumma, a senior planetary scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and his colleagues report in the online edition of Science that they used ground-based telescopes to spot a significant belch of methane that appears to have emerged from localized regions on Mars in summer 2003. Sushil Atreya, a professor of atmospheric and space science at the University of Michigan who did not contribute to the study, noted two significant observations made by Mumma’s team: that Mars hosts active hot spots of methane and that the gas appears to be destroyed rapidly by chemical processes, indicating the presence of powerful oxidizing agents.

Specifically, observations made by Mumma and his colleagues showed a relative dearth of methane on Mars in spring 2006, implying seasonal fluctuations of the gas’s release. The levels were so low that they did not account for the methane released in the summer 2003 event, even if it were a freak one-time occurrence. Photochemistry, which breaks down methane over time, acts too slowly to explain the rapid disappearance of the gas. Assuming that the methane is produced by internal processes on Mars, Atreya said that the source could be “geology, in which case it’s the reaction between water and rock, or it’s biology, in which case the microbes are producing the methane.” In either case, the discovery of individual methane plumes points to the existence of localized aquifers (water-bearing rock layers) under the surface, he said. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. “With that, we can search for a dozen different molecular trace species in the atmosphere simultaneously,” Mumma says. “So that’s the next step: to actually test the abundance of those species, because their abundances should depend on the origin of the material.” And the Mars Science Laboratory, now scheduled for a 2011 launch, will conduct an isotopic analysis that will provide an independent assessment of the gas’s origin.

Editor’s Note :Dr Gilbert V. Levin’s 1976 Viking Lander’s biological experiments proved there was microbial life on Mars. His tests were successfully tested in Antarctic soil and the Mohave Desert and could detect as few as 10-50 bacterial cells per gram. On Mars, Patch Rock changed color during the spring-summer growing seasons showing further proof of life. Three meteorites from Mars found on Earth have Martian bacteria.

Mars Symbols

Astronomer, Tom Van Flandern reports concerning strange dark markings have the appearance of symbols on many images from Mars, “This can be seen directly in the original strip image on the NASA/JPL site with the aid of a magnifying glass.” Much evidence indicates that Mars is an escaped former moon of a now-exploded parent planet. That fits with what we see in these images, which have the character of what humans will one day construct on our own Moon, rather than the character expected of the builders’ home world. It also hints at what happened to the builders since many of the images have a familiar humanoid or terrestrial appearance. The best available dating for the most recent major explosion event in the solar system is 3.2 million years ago, which may then mark the end of the builder’s home world. That is also the best dating we have for the first appearance of humanoids on Earth. The images on Mars therefore raise the possibility that humans are a transfer species. This transfer-species speculation fits with the most ancient surviving legends in all cultures about a ‘golden age’ (the ‘Garden of Eden’ myth) and a ‘global flood’ (the ‘Noah’s Ark’ myth); and with our natural biorhythm cycle having a length (24.9 hours) close to that of the Martian day.”