NEWS ALERT: POSSIBLE DETECTION OF LIFE ON MARS

There's been a discovery of such potential importance that I'd like you all to be aware of it without delay. The discovery is preliminary and it may turn out to be a false alarm. However, it's implications are so profound that I didn't want to wait for the next full newsletter to give you the heads-up.

Briefly, it seems as if methane has been found in the Martian atmosphere. Separate teams from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the European Space Agency have detected the presence of methane gas in small quantities. This is hugely significant because methane must be continually replenished, otherwise photochemical processes would remove it on a timescale of about 300 years. The likelihood is that the replenishment is done by methanogenic microbes in the Martian soil. In other words, these, as-yet-unpublished data, strongly point to the presence of living organisms on Mars.

The story was broken in The Independent newspaper (London) yesterday and reads as follows:

A strong signal of life on Mars has been detected by scientists at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and the European Space Agency.

Each group has independently discovered tantalising evidence of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Methane, a waste product of living organisms on Earth, could also be a by-product of alien microbes living under the surface of the Red Planet.

The detection of methane has been the holy grail of scientists studying the Martian atmosphere, as its presence could provide unequivocal proof that there is life beyond Earth.

Neither Nasa nor the European Space Agency (ESA) has publicly announced the findings, but specialists who have seen the data believe the discovery is genuine -- although they are unsure what it means in terms of confirming the presence of life.

The discovery comes weeks after Nasa and ESA announced new findings relating to the presence of huge bodies of water on Mars which could have supported life.

The European effort is led by Vittorio Formisano, of the Institute of Physics and Interplanetary Science in Rome, who operates the methane-detecting spectrometer on board the Mars Express spacecraft orbiting the planet. "We can identify the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere and we've been able to evaluate how much of it there would be," Professor Formisano said. "Globally, if I average all the data I have, I can find something of the order of 10 or 10.5 parts per billion. It's detectable, but only if I average a lot of data."

Methane is destroyed by the intense ultraviolet radiation on Mars because the gas has a relatively short photochemical lifetime of about 300 years, so if it is present there must be something producing it continually, Professor Formisano said. "[Its presence] is significant and very important. If it is present you need a source," he added.

The second group to detect signals of methane in the Martian atmosphere is led by Michael Mumma of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, who used powerful spectroscopic telescopes based on Earth.

This team is even believed to have detected variations in the concentrations of methane, with a peak coming from the ancient Martian seabed of Meridiani Planum, which is being explored by a Nasa rover.

This could indicate a subterranean source of methane which is pumping out the gas, either due to some residual geological activity or because of the presence of living organisms producing it as a waste gas.

Asked whether the continual production of methane is strong evidence of a biological origin of the gas, Dr Mumma said: "I think it is, myself personally."

He added: "It's difficult to imagine that primordial methane [from geological activity] would continue outgassing for four billion years [the age of Mars]. This looks very intriguing." Both teams of scientists are now busy validating their results before their respective organisations are prepared to go public on the implications.

If any of you have further information, please contact me or post your comments on my forum.


Until next time,
Best wishes,
David Darling