New Scientist continues the focus on possible Martian life with a story on Vittorio Formisano, a European Space Agency scientist who believes he has found formaldehyde on the Red Planet. His data come from the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer aboard Mars Express, and indicate a formaldehyde concentration of 130 parts per billion. Formisano, from the Institute of Physics and Interplanetary Science in Rome, will present these results next week at a conference in the Netherlands.
Formisano’s views are bound to be controversial; the scientist believes the formaldehyde is being produced by the oxidation of methane, and says that 2.5 million tons of methane would need to be generated each year to create this much of it. New Scientist writer Jenny Hogan quotes Formisano in A Whiff of Life on the Red Planet:
“I believe that until it is demonstrated that non-biological processes can produce this, possibly the only way to produce so much methane is life,” [Formisano] says. “My conclusion is there must be life in the soil of Mars.”
The presence of formaldehyde could explain why earlier studies found uneven distributions of methane on Mars, says Formisano. Because methane takes hundreds of years to break down by itself, the wind should even out the concentration of the gas around the planet. But if it is being oxidised in some regions, such as those that are rich in iron compounds, then you would find less methane in those areas.
At issue is the sensitivity of the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer instrument, and the larger question of whether the methane already detected on Mars really is biological in origin. Expect a protracted debate next week in the Netherlands. A key point: Martian geology in many ways remains unknown to us. Drawing conclusions on an issue this momentous from questionable measurements of formaldehyde is premature, a fact Formisano himself seems to acknowledge. As he told New Scientist: “The next step is to go there and look for it.”
Is There Life On Mars – Ask A Magnet
The meteorite ALH84001 contains magnetite crystals that some scientists believe were produced by martian microbes.
by James Kling
for Astrobiology Magazine
Moffett Field CA (SPX) May 06, 2008
Between three and four billion years ago, Mars was a lot like Earth. Both planets are believed to have had surface water. Those similarities make it a prime candidate for extraterrestrial life. “The assumption is that if bacterial life emerged on Earth at that time, then why not on Mars?” says Soon Sam Kim, principal member of technical staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Full article here:
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Is_There_Life_On_Mars_Ask_A_Magnet_999.html
Methane pockets confirmed on Mars:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081021/full/4551018a.html
Whether they are of organic or geological origin is still
uncertain, but they may influence where MSL is going
to land on the Red Planet in 2 years.
Variability of the methane trapping in martian subsurface clathrate hydrates
Authors: Caroline Thomas, Olivier Mousis, Sylvain Picaud, Vincent Ballenegger
(Submitted on 23 Oct 2008)
Abstract: Recent observations have evidenced traces of methane CH4 heterogeneously distributed in the martian atmosphere. However, because the lifetime of CH4 in the atmosphere of Mars is estimated to be around 300-600 years on the basis of photochemistry, its release from a subsurface reservoir or an active primary source of methane have been invoked in the recent literature. Among the existing scenarios, it has been proposed that clathrate hydrates located in the near subsurface of Mars could be at the origin of the small quantities of the detected CH4.
Here, we accurately determine the composition of these clathrate hydrates, as a function of temperature and gas phase composition, by using a hybrid statistical thermodynamic model based on experimental data. Compared to other recent works, our model allows us to calculate the composition of clathrate hydrates formed from a more plausible composition of the martian atmosphere by considering its main compounds, i.e. carbon dioxyde, nitrogen and argon, together with methane. Besides, because there is no low temperature restriction in our model, we are able to determine the composition of clathrate hydrates formed at temperatures corresponding to the extreme ones measured in the polar caps.
Our results show that methane enriched clathrate hydrates could be stable in the subsurface of Mars only if a primitive CH4-rich atmosphere has existed or if a subsurface source of CH4 has been (or is still) present.
Comments: Accepted for publication in Planetary and Space Science
Subjects: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:0810.4359v1 [astro-ph]
Submission history
From: Olivier Mousis [view email]
[v1] Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:31:45 GMT (110kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.4359