Martian atmosphere pristine, totally free of fart gas, reports Curiosity Mars rover Curiosity has taken a whiff of the wind at Rocknest in the Gale Crater - but the Red Planet hasn't been passing the gas the nuclear-powered tank is looking for. Jersey cow A common or garden Earth-based methane-producing machine The rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments have been sniffing for methane …
What components did Curiosity find in the atmosphere? Kinda missing out on the fact that this measurements also showed that the Martian atmosphere is approx. 95% carbon dioxide. Sure; we already "knew" (assumed" is a better term IMO) but now we're sure.
I'm also missing mentioning of the fact that boffins have compared the analysis results with measurements made on meteorites which contained "air bubbles". The current findings confirmed that those rocks were indeed from Mars as people have assumed so far.
Still, I think this is a really impressive achievement. Esp. the fact that they setup Curiosity so that it can measure so many things using the same hardware.
The presence of methane is surely dependant upon the emissions of carbon-based life forms (and I dont wish to sound like Douglas Adams at this point), so is there any cosmic law that says life HAS to be carbon-based and not, for example, silicon?
I am neither a chemist or a physicist so I would welcome being enlightened on this.
Life as we know it would be carbon based, although some theories suggest Silicon as an alternative, this would seem unlikely as Silicon is significantly larger and therefore unlikely to form the same level of strands (i.e DNA).
If we assume carbon based lifeforms but different methods of chemical processes then we still end up producing methane, this is because methane is the most basic compound of carbon, and would be expected to be produced as a biproduct of any process (either direct, as in breathing, or indirect as in decaying of organisms).
Not sure if missing the irony or something but Uranus (with a minimum temperature of 49 K (−224 °C) seems to me proof enough you don't necessarily need life to get methane. From the arguments given though it sounds like if life is around you will get methane.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
