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Organic material found on Mars

Yup, it was a NothingBurger.

For those who dont know: "Organic" means "containing carbon". And yes, methane is made up of 1 carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms, but that is absolutely no indication of life. The gas giants in our solar system are full of methane. They do not have life.
NASA just wanted to be in the news, I guess. But this is less newsworthy than Donalds latest temper-tantrum.
 
shortylickens said:
Yup, it was a NothingBurger.

For those who dont know: "Organic" means "containing carbon". And yes, methane is made up of 1 carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms, but that is absolutely no indication of life. The gas giants in our solar system are full of methane. They do not have life.
NASA just wanted to be in the news, I guess. But this is less newsworthy than Donalds latest temper-tantrum.
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Methane is a volatile gas that tends to react with the environment. It has to be continually replaced. What they found was the amount in the air varies throughout the Martian year.

That means interesting chemistry is going on. Either there are some active geological processes or there are biological processes going on. Both are very interesting possibilities if you are a scientist interested in Mars.
 
Paratus said:
Methane is a volatile gas that tends to react with the environment. It has to be continually replaced. What they found was the amount in the air varies throughout the Martian year.

That means interesting chemistry is going on. Either there are some active geological processes or there are biological processes going on. Both are very interesting possibilities if you are a scientist interested in Mars.
Click to expand...

Not only that, but Mars has no magnetic field (its core cooled) and so any gasses get blown away by solar winds. It was thought that the core cooled and so any activity should have stopped whereas Earth still has a molten core and has a magnetic field and is actively adding gasses to its atmosphere.

So not nothing.
 
Not Nothing. Definitely interesting, but lots of further work to tell if it's Something.
The seasonality and half life of atmospheric methane makes it definitely interesting.

Interesting info also about the ancient organic macromolecules found in the mudstone samples.

Good reason to fund further missions and reminder that America is still awesome at some things.




Or we could just blow the money on tax breaks for rich people.
 
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Lets just get up there... DSF and pcgeek can have this rotten planet Im out.. and ill be flipping the bird bacwards for the entire launch... and have a laugh when climate change eats them alive.
 
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Fanatical Meat said:
There are theories that life on earth could have been seeded from mars
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Darwin333 said:
Or asteroids for that matter.
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I’m pretty sure if we find life in the solar system it’ll be related to life here.

We’ve found meteorites from Mars here. I’m sure chunks of Earth have hit other bodies in the solar system in the past after the Earth was hit with large asteroids.

It would only take a few of the right bacteria surviving the trip and landing in the right spot on Mars, Europa, etc to ‘infect’ another body with life.
 
Paratus said:
Methane is a volatile gas that tends to react with the environment. It has to be continually replaced. What they found was the amount in the air varies throughout the Martian year.

That means interesting chemistry is going on. Either there are some active geological processes or there are biological processes going on. Both are very interesting possibilities if you are a scientist interested in Mars.
Click to expand...
Methane would only react in an oxidizing environment. How much oxygen is in the Martian as atmosphere? Moreover, there isn't a sufficient level of ozone to block UV radiation, so all sorts of radical reactions are likely occurring, and could plausibly explain the formation of thiophenes and the other aromatic species. The presence of non-oxidized sulfur compounds like thiophenes and dimethyl sulfide are also only possible due to an oxygen free environment.
 
We are spending so much money on this stuff, but what is it getting us? Satiation for greedy curiosities? Leaving dead machines on bodies in space? Coin for so many? Meeting an alien some day? 😵
 
bradly1101 said:
We are spending so much money on this stuff, but what is it getting us? Satiation for greedy curiosities? Leaving dead machines on bodies in space? Coin for so many? Meeting an alien some day? 😵
Click to expand...


One day we'll send a space battleship to Iscandar to bring back a device that can save the earth.
 
uclaLabrat said:
Methane would only react in an oxidizing environment. How much oxygen is in the Martian as atmosphere?
Click to expand...

The martian atmosphere is 96% CO2, and about 0.1% O2 so there is a lot of oxygen on mars, it is all just already bound. But O2 breaks down under UV, so there must be some O2 sink on Mars?
 
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