Update on Mars' atmosphere, Media briefing on NASA Jan 15th Options

[imipak]

Active hotspots identified are Terra Sabae, Nili Fossae and Syrtis Major. From my visual memory of the slide, the first source was extended north-south, with the other two being "point sources" (at the resolution of the data, anyway) roughly level with the top and bottom of the Terra Sabae source - very very roughly:

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`--`       (x)  C

Edit: NASA TV's now showing a pre-recorded interview with Mike Mumma.

[ngunn]

The source could be clathrated methane

Exactly my thought. I don't understand why this wasn't mentioned. Are we missing something?

[SirBruce]

I wasn't going to post again -- I've found most admins don't care to discuss their policies in-depth -- but given that this has dragged out a little bit, what the hell, I feel the need to add my two cents.

It was written in a hurry. The point I'm making is that people can talk about anything they want. But they can't talk about biology, here. People object as if I'm banning them from discussing the subject. I'm not. I'm saying you can't talk about it HERE. It's not as if people can't go and talk about it somewhere else. Sorry if that was not clear.

I think this is either a very weak defense, or simply muddying the waters, or is missing the point. Of course you mean you are banning them from discussing the subject HERE and not elsewhere. What, do some people think you're god? Do you have control over the entire Internet? Maybe you're getting at that you're an admin elsewhere. But in any case, people who are objecting are objecting because you're choosing to ban it HERE, and the fact that it's a valid topic elsewhere is more or less irrelevant to their (or at least, my) feelings and objections.

There are things I want to talk about that, if I posted them here, I, in my admin role, would delete them, and then ban myself resulting in a catastrophic rip in the forum-time continuum. I know the rules for UMSF, so I stick firmly within them. If I want to discuss things that are outside the scope of UMSF (and regularly, I do) I visit BAUT usually.

I can respect the desire of admins to create such rules in order to keep conversations from getting out of control, but in this case I think it's a misguided rule going way too far. A huge part of unmanned spaceflight science is astrobiological in nature. It seems bizarre to ban such discussion of that. I can't imagine trying to discuss measruements from Mars landers and rovers, or extrasolar planet observatories, all the while cautiously avoiding any mention of biological implications of those results. A whole chunk of the discussion of the nature of organics on Titan was related to their value in analyzing pre-biotic, if not ultimately biotic, chemistry. In this very thread, even after your previous warning, other people have already discussed biology. How can people even discuss the NASA press conference, without discussing the very questions and answers which were focused on biology at least 80% of the time? I presume if NASA someday *did* announce an unmanned probe discovered life on an extrasolar body, it would become a valid topic to discuss here? Seems kind-of silly that it can't be discussed until then.

But, as I said before, it was not my intention to come in here and cause a big ruckus about the rules. You can run your site as you want; I'm simply disappointed and my subsequent interest in posting here after years of lurking is substantially reduced.

[elakdawalla]

Let me try to explain in a different way. This site is moderated and administered by humans who have interest in space exploration, in all sorts of different topics, and we spend the time it takes to moderate this site because we generally enjoy the discussions. However, some discussion topics -- for example, astrobiology and human spaceflight -- have, in the past, generated more than their share of administrative headaches, to the point that the ratio of our administrative headache to our enjoyment of the discussion has just gotten too high for us to want to continue to deal with it, even if we may be interested in the topic. Therefore, we push discussion of such topics to other forums -- astrobiology to BAUT, human spaceflight to nasaspaceflight.com -- where those site administrators have proven more willing and interested in moderating the discussions than the particular group of administrators is here.

--Emily

[Juramike]

Exactly my thought. I don't understand why this wasn't mentioned. Are we missing something?

Gas hydrate release was mentioned several times during the convened panel discussion.

The tricky part will be trying to differentiate all the possibilities: current geological release, release of trapped stuff directly from clathrate, clathrate release to an underground storage cap with an even later release, or biological (or even past biological gases being trapped). Isotope ratios will help, but I think it'll be a lot of challenging (and rewarding) work to try to get to the bottom (pun on multiple layers there) of the methane release.

[stevesliva]

Of course, until the news conference, there isn't actually a story.

Speaking of-- and feel free to delete or move this comment-- but Craig Covault was let go by Aviation Week and is now working for spaceflightnow.

[djellison]

I think it's a misguided rule going way too far.

As I've said elsewhere in similar discussions - accusations of baby out with bathwater are expected, and at least partially justified. But that's the price that I consider worth paying. Emilys posts explains it very very well.

No - I don't think I'm some internet god. But I fail to see why people go 'Wahahh - I want to talk about X'. What is stopping them doing that? Nothing. Find a place where it's allowed, and do it. I don't complain that I can't talk about manned spaceflight, or religion, or biology, or politics, or other off topic stuff. I stick to the rules and find somewhere else to talk about the issues I want to talk about that are not within the remit of UMSF.

UMSF is, intentionally, about a very very small subject area. S/N ratio is the currency of forums, and this one is, fortunately, quite high. I don't intend to risk it on subject matter that is, at its core, off topic. What is and isn't acceptable in a forum is more than just reading it's URL and assuming that's it.

Doug

[Julius]

Any ideas as to whether current Mars orbiters with radar have studied the undersurface of such regions on the planet releasing Methane gas?

[ollopa]

I couldn't help noticing that two of the panelists have a close association with the MEX-PFS instrument. Sushil Atreya (a thorough gentlemen) is on the PFS team and Geronimo Villanueva is Official Reviewer of the MEX-PFS Archive. I'd have liked to hear MUCH more about how Mumma's work might help sort out the genuine problems with PFS calibration. Can Vittorio Formisano go back and recalibrate?

[silylene]

i do wish that the researchers did not seriously consider photochemical generation of methane as a significant source of abiogenic methane.

Please refer to this thread, or even older threads in SDC (with many references) : http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...&hl=methane

From the synopsis of the press conference I read on SDC by MW (sorry, I missed the press conference): I would like to see chemcial kinetic rate data that photolysis takes 'centuries', or was this a conjecture? It would need to be a steady state effect: methane is both being produced and being lost. The concentration observed reflects the chemical kinetics of these two processes.

The map of methane production shown (I recall we went over this before, in the pre-Pluck and also pre-crash SDC forums), and indeed in the pre-crash SDC also!) gives the highest methane production in the Martian equitorial band. This is exactly what would be expected if it were a photochemical process, since this would occure in the areas of highest irradiance.

The photochemical process I proposed (see the link above, or for more information, the older links in SDC) was a photoreduction of CO2 catalyzed on metal oxide dust surfaces with hydrogen (which comes from water). The dusts (TiO2, for example, this works with several types of oxides) serve as catalysts for this effect. in fact, I would expect areas in which the dust is uplifted due to winds or dust devils to expose more dust catalyst for methane photoproduction. So you may see the highest rates where there is both high irradiance, and higher concentrations of exposed metal oxide dusts. I also recall about 2 yrs ago that, I came across a paper which found some atmospheric photoreduction chemistry occuring on the dusts from the soil surfaces in Chile'se Atacambra desert, which is a rather good stand-in for the Martian conditions.

Also, one would need to correlate the seasonal variation lifting or exposure of exposure of dusts which may serve as catalysts. And/or correlate the seasonal variation in the concentration of H2O in the atmosphere may be inportant too, as this is the source of H2 for the photreduction of CO2 to methane.

Until I see more, I am very unconvinced of the need for a biogenic methane source. I am looking forward to reading their journal paper to see how they treated the photochcemical generation.

[gpurcell]

FWIW, looks like the observations were purely Earth-based, from the Mauna Kea observatories.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27373

[marsbug]

The map of methane production shown (I recall we went over this before, in the pre-Pluck and also pre-crash SDC forums), and indeed in the pre-crash SDC also!) gives the highest methane production in the Martian equitorial band. This is exactly what would be expected if it were a photochemical process, since this would occure in the areas of highest irradiance.

If that is correct it does go against a biological source, you'd expect microbes to be concentrated in areas where water ice was more common and there was some chance of liquid water.

[ilbasso]

As I've said elsewhere in similar discussions - accusations of baby out with bathwater are expected, and at least partially justified. But that's the price that I consider worth paying. Emilys posts explains it very very well.

I just hope we NEVER get back a picture from Spirit or Oppy with a critter perched on one of their solar panels! We wouldn't be able to talk about it! We could, however, play with various projections of it.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Let me try to explain in a different way. This site is moderated and administered by humans who have interest in space exploration, in all sorts of different topics, and we spend the time it takes to moderate this site because we generally enjoy the discussions. However, some discussion topics -- for example, astrobiology and human spaceflight -- have, in the past, generated more than their share of administrative headaches, to the point that the ratio of our administrative headache to our enjoyment of the discussion has just gotten too high for us to want to continue to deal with it, even if we may be interested in the topic. Therefore, we push discussion of such topics to other forums -- astrobiology to BAUT, human spaceflight to nasaspaceflight.com -- where those site administrators have proven more willing and interested in moderating the discussions than the particular group of administrators is here.

--Emily

This is the last i'm going to say on this issue, but I felt I had to respond.

More and more of NASA's research and discovery aims are becoming astrobiology related as a result of the unmanned spacecraft visiting more and more destinations. Possibile subsurface oceans on Europa and Ganymede... and the latest discoveries at Enceladus by Cassini. I remember the tremendous excitement and anticipation surrounding Opportunity's first discoveries at Meridiani relating to water and possible past habitability. Phoenix and the polar Ice too. The future MSL will have a substantial astrobiology element to the mission.

These latest results will surely have an impact on future design and instruments to be sent to Mars which is why I found the suggestion that people could be banned or suspended for discussing them truly astonishing.

[djellison]

These latest results will surely have an impact on future design and instruments to be sent to Mars which is why I found the suggestion that people could be banned or suspended for discussing them truly astonishing.

Then talk about them in a different forum - what's stopping you? People get banned or suspended for breaking the rules. The rules are there for everyone to see. People get warnings and a heads up when they're running the risk of breaking those rules. We even gave a specific warning in this very thread.

If someone gets banned - it's because they refuse to respect the rules.

UMSF was started, as you will remember, as a place for people to share their mosaics, and talk about what the MER's were up to. Its scope has grown and grown and grown for 5 years. Lines have to be drawn to dictate what is an isn't allowed to maintain the S/N ratio for those topics for which the board was started. Biology, like Politics, or Manned Spaceflight - has baggage. It has too much scope for arguments, bickering, personal ranting campaigns - and in the specific case of biology, fringe theory nut jobs.

Now, we can try and accommodate that subject and spend, literally, hours trying to keep things at a reasonable level, get accused of bias or inconsistent treatment - and the end result is the very occasional interesting topic and an enormous quantity of unseen administrative workload, annoyance, hassle, insults, accusations and entirely unjustified stress.

OR - we can simply say no to that subject entirely, giving admins and mods little bits of their lives back, keeping the ammount of administrative workload to a minimum - and above all, maintain the S/N ratio of the subjects for which this forum was started and is maintained.

If you want to talk about Biology, try the www.bautforum.com - it's brilliantly maintained, conducive to interesting discourse, and a perfect home for that sort of discussion. It's what I do - and I can see no reason why anyone else would object to doing the same.