Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Is Anything Tough Enough to Survive On Mars?

posted by mrpg on Friday March 03 2017, @03:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the besides-the-rovers dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

The answer, strangely, is not "Chuck Norris":

Two recent publications suggest that life, in the form of ancient, simple organisms called methanogens, could survive the harsh conditions found near the surface of Mars, and deep in its soils. Using methanogens to test for survivability is particularly relevant because scientists have detected their byproduct, methane, in the Martian atmosphere. On Earth, methane is strongly associated with organic matter, though there are non-organic sources of the gas, including volcanic eruptions.

Scientists aren't yet sure what the presence of Martian methane means. But one possibility is that tenacious life flourishes on Mars despite the rocky soil, thin atmosphere and scarcity of liquid water.

"We consider methanogens ideal candidates for possible life on Mars because they are anaerobic, and non-photosynthetic, meaning that they could exist in the subsurface," said Rebecca Mickol, a Ph.D. candidate at the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Science. "Just a few millimeters of Martian regolith is enough to protect the organisms from the dangerous UV and cosmic radiation that hits the surface. Additionally, methane has been detected in the Martian atmosphere, via multiple space-based and ground-based sources, including the Martian rover, Curiosity. Although these findings are still controversial, the presence of methane on Mars is particularly exciting because most methane on Earth is biological in origin."

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Is Anything Tough Enough to Survive On Mars? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 15 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @03:37PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @03:37PM (#474389)

    ... survived on Mars for over a year!

    • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by isostatic on Friday March 03 2017, @04:48PM (1 child)

      by isostatic (365) on Friday March 03 2017, @04:48PM (#474430) Journal

      Ahh, you must be a Thermian

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @05:56PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @05:56PM (#474472)

        termites, or dalmations! I dunno, I was hung over.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @07:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @07:46PM (#474529)

      I bet Chuck Norris could survive two.

  • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday March 03 2017, @03:52PM

    by stretch611 (6199) on Friday March 03 2017, @03:52PM (#474401)

    Buggalo can survive on Mars.

    http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Buggalo [wikia.com]

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Friday March 03 2017, @03:54PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 03 2017, @03:54PM (#474402) Journal
    There's a simple geological process with the unwieldy name of "serpentinization" [uoregon.edu] which can account for the methane. Basically, igneous rock (as the link notes "ultramafic" [wikipedia.org] in particular which means relatively low silica rock such as basalt which we know exist on Mars) on Earth is often quite reactive with water routinely releasing methane in the process. So we should expect methane to be released just from natural processes (basalt reacting with water containing CO2) that mostly likely exist on Mars as they do on Earth. Occam's razor and all that.

    I seem to recall that some Earth-side bacteria live off of this process. I think it would be amusing here if the actual sign of life on Mars is not that methane is being released, but rather that too little methane is being released.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 03 2017, @06:03PM (2 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday March 03 2017, @06:03PM (#474476)

      Shhh... Someone needed to publish for a grant renewal, so they took the old "there's methane on Mars" data, and matched it to a Goodle search for "stuff which lives off methane".
      It's an easy parlor trick, since the media bites on every story with "Life on Mars" in the title...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @06:13PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @06:13PM (#474478)

        Oh those silly elitist researchers, doing science for the lulz and the phat stackz.

        What is WRONG with you people?

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday March 03 2017, @07:05PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 03 2017, @07:05PM (#474510) Journal
          I think there's several related problems here. First, there's a lot of people who could be scientists, but aren't. Second, there's a lot of envy. A lot of people would like to be scientists. It's a pretty simple lifestyle and the good and/or lucky ones get a lot of perks that usually takes considerable wealth to get (play with expensive equipment, plenty of travel, sabbaticals, etc). Third, there's a lot of crap currently coming from scientists (such as the reproducibility problems common to huge swaths of medicine). And fourth, there's a lot of demeaning prostituting going on such as this continued push for life on Mars despite a peculiar lack of evidence to support that. I think that last point is what is pushing bob_super's slight derisiveness. I think we all get that scientists have to play the fund raising game (unless they're using their own funding, which no one seems to ever bother to do). That doesn't mean we respect them for it when it results in hyperventilating press pieces.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @06:31PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @06:31PM (#474486)

      Heh, that would be amusing but I don't see how they can tell there is too little methane without getting some boots on the ground. Satellites and rovers are only so useful.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @04:54PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @04:54PM (#474432)

    What's the big deal, I also release methane. A planet does it and everybody goes, "Oh Wow! That's special!". When I do it everybody calls me dirty slob and walks out.

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 03 2017, @06:38PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday March 03 2017, @06:38PM (#474492) Journal

      It's more the hydrogen sulphide they object to, is my guess :D

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @08:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @08:30PM (#474555)

    I'll fucking go myself and show you bunch of pussies that grit and determination and the will to succeed overcome your bullshit weak-man excuses. Someone stop me, I'm going there right now, someone stop me.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @09:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @09:36PM (#474612)

      tell trump, he'll grab it and we'll get funding for it!

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by el_oscuro on Saturday March 04 2017, @02:21AM

    by el_oscuro (1711) on Saturday March 04 2017, @02:21AM (#474735)

    Could Mars survive Chuck Norris?

    --
    SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(1)