Methane Hints at Life on Mars

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Methane Hints at Life on Mars

NASA

NASA scientists have discovered regularly replenished supplies of methane gas on the Red Planet. That raises two possibilities: The gas could be formed by geologic activity or, as anyone who has spent time around cows can tell you, it could be a sign of life.

BBC:

Some scientists consider it possible that microbes could have survived for aeons below the Martian permafrost layer, where water changes from ice into liquid.

In deep canyons, or the walls of yawning craters, ice might plug fissures or pores connecting these sub-permafrost regions to the atmosphere.

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By Night-Gaunt, September 18, 2009 at 8:33 am Link to this comment

It would be a devil’s jest if the methane releases are from frozen bogs millions of years ago from a forest that is long gone and it isn’t life at all. But on the plus side if it is we could still get and reconstruct the DNA and then regenerate the former trees of Mars at some time in the future.

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