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The Meridiani Journal
a chronicle of planetary exploration

Blog: http://web.me.com/meridianijournal
Twitter: http://twitter.com/meridiani
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While that looks fascinating, your own thoughts on the matter would be nice, rather then just presenting a link. I am not clicking until I hear something from you.

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Ok; I was busy with other things too, but I had already commented about it on the blog:

http://web.me.com/meridianijournal/m...y_on_mars.html

__________________
The Meridiani Journal
a chronicle of planetary exploration

Blog: http://web.me.com/meridianijournal
Twitter: http://twitter.com/meridiani
Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/blognetwork...idiani_journal
RSS: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/meridianijournal

My personal opinion is that there Mars has Archaeabacteria (extremophiles) under the surface---but how it got there I am not sure.

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

So to prevent a blind click, you offer another blind click...

I'm a little bolder. The OP is referencing the NASA release that there will be a briefing on the subject on Thursday.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Why can't you just read the news release and / or my commentary as already posted on the blog like anyone else? I don't always have time to go into commentary on something that is self-explanatory if you just read it. At least I posted this significant news when nobody else had yet... that itself is supposed to generate follow-up discussion, so instead of complaining, why not try discussing the information itself as people are doing in other forums?

__________________
The Meridiani Journal
a chronicle of planetary exploration

Blog: http://web.me.com/meridianijournal
Twitter: http://twitter.com/meridiani
Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/blognetwork...idiani_journal
RSS: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/meridianijournal

Aha...an explaination.

I don't think that there was really commentary missing, just a word or two to say "why did I post this". But, I did think the title was mostly self explanitory, although I thought it was a discussion of a briefing rather than a notification of a briefing.

There's been plenty of instances of blind links that have "got" people in the past, and that applies more than just here.

Um... I can understand why you posted this, but this can also come across as... "Here...You guys discuss this for me...I don't have time"

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Yeah, I don't like being click-jacked, but the link, as it appears in my status bar, appears to be from NASA, so it's probably safe. Still, a quote or summary of the page would be nice.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Especially as nothing at the linked site says anything about the thread title, at least not directly, though I assume the OP was referring to methane traces in the atmosphere, which can, be a sign of life in an oxygen rich environment (methane has short persistence in the presence of oxygen and must be renewed by some mechanism to be present in the atmosphere at a constant or renewed percentage - on Earth the most common source is life). In an oxygen poor environment, however, methane persists much better, and significant percentages could be maintained atmospherically through geologic seepage through fractured crust regions and other mechanisms.

Even little, green-bugs, are as of yet, unsubstantiated. The discovery of life would be momentus, but problematic in some respects.

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Iyam what Iyam

Of course it doesn't. The OP was being tabloid sensationalist. All we know is that researchers who have been studying Martian methane are involved in a press conference.

Is the briefing about possible life? We don't know. If it about geological activity? We don't know. Stating "NASA briefing: possible life or geological activity on Mars" is premature and misleading.


Doug

You've got it backwards. We don't know for sure it's about the methane findings, that's just the most likely conclusion from the available information. The part about life or geological activity is straight from the NASA press release: "NASA will hold a science update at 2 p.m. EST, Thursday, Jan. 15, to discuss analysis of the Martian atmosphere that raises the possibility of life or geologic activity."

Well, don´t take too hard on Paul S. Anderson. I think he´s just being enthusiastic, and possibly erring on the optimistic side. The post draws attention to tomorrow´s Press Conference. His blog is cool and, besides, any effort at divulging planetary sciences should be welcome.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

'Possible life' is not the same as the 'possibility' of life, the same way that biology is not the same as habitability.

The OP crossed a subtle yet very significant line when writing his thread title.

I did not claim it was. I think it's safe to assume it will be, but I didn't say it was. What I SAID was "researchers who have been studying Martian methane are involved in a press conference." That is a statement of fact. Just Google the names involved.

Exactly. The NASA release itself used that phrase, Doug and Trakar, so no, it is not premature or misleading or sensationalistic. Life or active geology are a possibility, and I stated it as such, nothing more. That is the phrase which sums up what the press conference is about, so I don't know how you could have missed it.

I usually do add a bit more than just a link, but was busy with other things as well, so sorry about that. I also meant before that the release itself was self-explanatory, not the thread title, and it is clear it is a bona-fide NASA release, if you just look at it. It was also being distributed among other space and NASA-related RSS feeds, etc. so I was actually surprised no one else had mentioned it yet before me.

There is a rather sensationalistic sounding article title on Drudge Report right now though...

__________________
The Meridiani Journal
a chronicle of planetary exploration

Blog: http://web.me.com/meridianijournal
Twitter: http://twitter.com/meridiani
Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/blognetwork...idiani_journal
RSS: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/meridianijournal

And here's where it leads, a Sun story, "Life on Mars":

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...cle2133475.ece

I'm sure Hoagland will be on C2C tonight saying this confirms his conspiracy theories.....


-Richard

Too busy to write, say, a dozen extra words. But no so busy as to be unable to post the link in the first place, nor return to post another link to an extensive blog entry of your own writing?

Why not wait until you had the time to make an appropriate thread opening?

"life" is becoming a NASA PR trigger word. I think they use it too much as they think it increases public interest in space programs. I think NASA should sell its programs on the science returns alone, not on the constant "Possibility of Life" mantra. I am tired of it.

They wave it about a lot, thats true, but you sound like you mean that evidence that might be taken as pointing toward life or habitablility isn't science.

Extrordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, but I don't find much extraordinary about that quote. 'Nasa finds life on mars' would be extraordinary, this is more 'we've found something that might be a sign of either active geology or life, maybe'. That it's to do with methane seems to be a pretty commonsense conclusion.

Nasa is looking for evidence of life and clues to lifes origins, thats a big thing to them, I can't blame them for announcing that a possible step in searching for life is a possible step in searching for life.

Perhaps some of the obvious annoyance here stems from us all being fed up with 'possible steps' that turn out not to be six months later? It seems to happen a lot and it is very frustrating, thats how science goes.... Besides, as doug pointed out on his forum, until the press release there is no story to be either excited or dissapointed by!

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I'M WRITING UP MY THESIS AND BECOMING A DAD SOON. I'LL BE BACK IN SUMMER TO AUTUMN 2010.

For me it's enough for the garden to be beautifull; why do so many want to see fairies at the bottom?

"Many of those people are not getting four when adding two and two; many of them aren't even getting five or twenty-two. They're getting potato."
Gillianren

Because then it might not be the first thread...Jeesh.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

For what it is worth, I posted a link to the stream in another thread dealing with "Plumes of Methane". The reason for not starting a new thread is that earlier I posted a link to Mumma's DPS40 talk that is working that relates to a recent paper being published regarding Martian local concentrations of methane. During the lecture Mumma noted that the regions where the methane was observed seemed to relate to places seen by MRO that indicate possible subsurface movement. This could indicate that the methane is coming from the subsurface. Atreya has written a few papers on subsurface abiotic production of methane and has also speculated on how this can occur at somewhat shallower depths prior to Mumma's discovery.

Biotic methane is neither ruled in nor ruled out as yet according to what Mumma said in the DPS lecture. So methane may still remain as a possible biomarker. McKay and Porco recently wrote a paper regarding the purity of methane as compared to other present hydrocarbons suggesting that a composition that is more than 99.9 percent pure methane is a further biomarker. Perhaps since Mumma's DPS presentation, measurements have been made of other hydrocarbons that might indicate that this "softer" biomarker has been teased out of the data or whether the concentrations favor the abiotic interpretation.

How many times do they have to answer that there is not enough evidence to sway it to biological or geological before the reporters stop asking it?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

And lastly the "in association with..." commercial...

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I just bumped into this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7829315.stm

about an hour old...Mars/methane....

oh how I miss Dr Carl Sagan!

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Mak: Pass the pepperoni please.
Fazor: "Hail, Bautainia! We pledge our hearts to thee! Science and woo, some babbling too, and astron-oh-meee!"
slang: And it made ash out of yew and tree.

Yeah; MSNBC Too (a bit longer article). Boy they are fast.

So, in the US it's puzzling, and UK it's a mystery. Typical.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

And here's Yahoo's article on this.

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Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true. -- Niels Bohr --

Ipsa scientia potestas est. ~ Knowledge itself is power.---- Bacon
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Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit.


Hint: this is at heart a scientific forum, and underneath the fooling around there are some diamond-hard minds hanging about, ready to tear you to shreads. -- mike alexander --

Beside the ancient river beds of the Martian gullies lies our destiny to explore... scientists have not been known for their expository skills except among their peers. As I have noted in past posts, we need to lobby, write letters, talk to our non-technical friends about what is going on and how it will affect us and our childrens' children.


It may be time that more scientists and technical individuals joined the ranks of journalists--

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post script to moderators:

Excuse the political intonations, please...

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

Where does the water go?

As interesting as the local presence of methane is also its fast destruction.

It is too fast destroyed to be attributed to only photolysis or upper atmosphere chenistry. So there is given a role for superoxidants such as H2O2 and to a lesser extent perchlorates seen by Phoenix. Turboelectric destruction or scrubbing is also possible but that needs quite a few dust devils to be active at once to get so much methane destroyed. The oxidation route essentially has CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O.

While the CO2 would just mix into the mostly CO2 atmosphere, there would be a noticeable spectral spike of the rarer H2O at the time and place of destruction associated locally with the concentrations of methane. While some of measurements do show both the presence of methane and water, they sometimes also do not overlap and this observation may be important. It appears the team will be making further publications about the seasonal aspects of the release and more time lapse measurements with the good telescopes may help tease out data about the evolution of water vapor as a result of the methane demise mechanisms that may be taking place.

There were two interesting comments regarding biology. Atreya volunteered without being asked during the question period about a point raised above about the presence of other hydrocarbons. Life can not be too careless in making just any hydrocarbons as some of them are not good for life...hence the purity of methane is a possible biomarker. Purely abiotic methods can be more careless and make other hydrocarbons as well as methane. A greater presence of these other hydrocarbons would be an indicator for abiotic mechanisms whether or not the production was recent or released from clathrates where the gas was trapped from an earlier time.

Dr. Pratt, the biologist, reminded us that methane is not only one organism's waste product, but another organism's food product. Considering how dry Mars is today, it would be to the organism's advantage to not only oxidize the methane but to also trap and save any water from the reaction. So it remains as a posibility that where the methane is destroyed but there is no water evidence left over to point to normal chemical avenues that leave a spectral water signature in the wake of the destruction of methane, that some biota might be invloved with the missing water as well as the methane destruction.

Dear borman,

Pardon my truncation...

All that you note is very scientifically logical and makes a strong case for mechanistic interpretations of Martian methane cycles. When addressing chemical kinetics--how well can you extrapolate the cited model by you into a computer simulation that can account for all possible variations of pressure, temperature, ionizing radiation, etc, etc... so that you don't reproduce an Earth model rather than a Martian model. I hope I make sense to you ...

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"When I walked into the car lot...I didn't think I was an easy mark..." --unknown

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"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
---Carl Sagan

Sorry, I can't seem to make sense of what you are asking.

The isuue is that the left side of the equation has CH4 and it is not on the right side of the equation. This is either chemistry or physics and is not dependent on whether one is on Mars or Earth or anywhere else. The equation must balance and conserve quantites on both sides regardless of the site of chemistry. All molecules have a vibrational "tailpipe" that spectrometers can see. If the CH4 is converted into some other hydrocarbon form, these forms also give off a specrtal signal. So where do the missing 19000 metric tons of methane go in order to not be spotted by the telescopes? CO2 is a good place to hide because the atmosphere is mostly CO2, but then one needs to find a route to get CH4 to CO2. This suggests oxidation as a prime candidate. One can be guided by the absence of other products that would appear in the Martian atmosphere when competing ideas are considered.

Suppose one imagines a process where 2CH4 goes into C2H2 + 3H2. But then all those tons of C2H2 would have been spotted by the spectrometers. In this way, the observations of what is there at the dissapearing CH4 densities monitored set rather serious constraints on what chemistry is taking place by virtue of absence of required products.