Interesting...

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27336

Methane?

I reckon so... after all, all those plesiosaurs, scorpion-people and "blue suited humanoids" must break wind sometimes...

Mike Mumma's name is synonymous with methane.

--Emily

I'm just trying to remember... wasn't something "methane related" already reported few months ago, ESA perhaps?

For more detail you could probably look at Mumma's DPS talk, though that talk may not be online anymore.

Awkward silence

Yep Methane and with the others on this Press Conference it seems to me that the emphasis will be on the implications for biological origins. Now before anyone goes postal those implications could, of course, be negative.
Checking out the other names home pages shows that they all have notable experience researching Methane in Mars Atmosphere:
Sunil Atreya (Mars Express PFS, Sources and sinks of methane on Mars .. )
Geronimo Villanueva (Search for Biomarker Gases on Mars, Identification of a New Band System of Isotopic CO2 near 3.3 µm: Implications for Remote Sensing of Biomarker Gases on Mars .. )
Lisa M. Pratt (Director NASA Astrobiology Team, Life in the Deep Subsurface of Earth and Mars, Long-Term Sustainability of a High-Energy, Low-Diversity Crustal Biome .. )

Here's some handy numbers (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_volcano)

On Earth, mud volcanoes are estimated to belch out about 2E11 - 1E14 m3 methane per year (at STP).
= 8.79E12 - 5.49E15 mol CH4
= 141E12 - 88E15 g CH4.

(The estimated amounts vary wildly, the numbers above are at the high end of the range. It's about 5-10% of the total methane output, most being biogenic).

What I didn't realize is that the main route for destruction of methane in Earth's atmosphere is reaction with hydroxyl radical in the upper atmosphere. Would this be a similar process for removal of methane from the Martian atmosphere, or would direct photolysis (CH4-->CH3. + H.) be operative? Or would dust grains be a catalytic surface?

Here's a handy link on tropospheric oxidizing processes on Earth: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/peop...0Oxidation%20of

-Mike

Isn't the methane emitted from mud volcanoes originally biological in origin, even if it's geological now?

Dunno. I always assumed it was from oxidation of iron minerals with H2 reduction of carbonate rocks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentinite)

[olivine + wa-wa + carbon dioxide --> serpentine + magnetite + methane]

(Fe,Mg)2SiO4 + nH2O + CO2 --> Mg3SiO5(OH4) + Fe3O4 + CH4

-Mike

There's some interesting background on Mars and Methane on Oliver Morton's wonderful blog, Mainly Martian.

The blog is now, alas, largely inactive, but for a year and a half it was a leading source for news of the rovers and unequaled for thoughtful and extremely well informed commentary on the rovers and planetary exploration generally. (Another starting point for the methane discussion is the Two Thousand Cows post.)

Mainly Martian is worth reading in chronological order, starting here, and it's a shame that the site doesn't make it easier to do so.
It's practically a sequel to Morton's book on Mars, Mapping Mars, itself an outstanding discussion of the state of Mars exploration on the eve of the Rover landings. The book is also a meditation on the experience of visualizing a distant planet, and provides a kind of historical and philosophical background to the activity of umsf.com.

TTT

The methane from most large mud volcanoes (e.g. Caspian Sea region and Indonesia) is most likely biogenic gas from the degradation of near-surface hydrocarbon accumulations.

For newbie mud volcanologists, here is a great place start.

Methane!! Yes, this could be a v interesting update/briefing.



I posted this in topic Local Methane Plumes On Mars a few months ago. In particular, check the interesting replies........ The problems on interpreting gases in the Martian atmosphere at parts per billion using ground based spectroscopy, alternative explanations for methane production such as via a Sabatier type process (good basic reference in Wikipedia) and Mars Express results.

For a start, I wonder if the update will be based on data derived from ground based spectroscopy???!!!

I hope that it has to do with a detection of methane by an orbiter spacecraft, to verify/back up the Earth based spectroscopy claims. This would be a really exciting finding either way.

Or it might be do do with the erosion/stripping away of Mars's atmosphere and the implications of this for its geological and hydrologic history and lilkihood of standing water bodies on the surface in the past.

The Sun is claiming that NASA will announce that the methane is from microbial life.

It MUST be true then. I have every faith in a paper that claims a low-flying UFO recently snapped a blade off a wind turbine, and that the lovely "Debbie, from Hull" is still 20 after having been on page 3 for at least 5 years...

The story is starting to appear on quite a few news sources now.

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

But, but... what about the story about the story that might me? That's a story too isn't it?


-- Pertinax

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE, RUN, RUN!!!!

Eh, ok, I'll wait for the press conference...

I believe methane was also discovered by Mars Express back in 2004.

Forgive me, but I don't understand why methane = life.
Titan and the gas-giants' atmospheres also contain methane and nobody claims that there are little green bugs on those planets.

Clinging for straws, IMHO.

It was. There have also been hints of it from ground based obs, and orbit obs. What I'm expecting ( although this is a guess ) is a map of its distribution across Mars- all be it at very very very low res. It should give us a hint of where it might be coming from.

Doug

Or at least about the dynamics of the upper atmosphere and where it concentrates for detection.
[I'm guessing this has less public appeal.]

According to news reports, the latest science have correlated the methane detections with water vapor clouds, strongly suggesting a biological linkage instead of, say, a volcanic origin.

I understand this, but I do have a question for you scientists out there. Wouldn't any volcanic subsurface heating that released methane up through the soil also cause melting of any subsurface ice, thus resulting in the release of both methane and water vapor at the surface? While I'm all for believing there is microbial life on Mars, I'm not sure why this isn't a possible explanation, and thus why a correlation doesn't necessarily point to biological over volcanic processes. Perhaps there are other geophysical reasons to exclude this, but I would appreciate any thoughts along those lines. (And if any of you have access to the scientists at or after the press conference, please pass this question along to them!)

I continue to be disappointed in the failure to include the possibility of photochemical generation of methane in the discussion whenever biological and geological sources are considered.

If methane is found in association with water clouds, is it to be implied that organisms generating the methane are present in the clouds? Is it not even more likely that the water in the clouds is used in a photochemical reaction creating the methane? I'd like to see the possibility at least addressed.

That makes sense to me.

As written on Fox News:

"(American media outlets are not yet reporting the story because they're honoring an "embargo," a promise to not run a story until a designated time, in this case 2 p.m. EST, when NASA is expected to hold a press conference. The Sun "broke" the embargo, prompting other British papers to follow suit.)"

So that's the story behind some of the story...

The story here, is that Astrobiology is off topic for UMSF. Rule 1.2. This is the first, last and only warning. In the post press-conf rush, I will not hesitate in hitting the delete button or issue suspensions.

Wow, guess things have changed since I stopped reading UMSF months ago. I recall all sorts of discussion in the past. I guess there must have been some thread that got out of hand and you laid down some new rules. Too bad; I'm not much interested in a place that's going to completely ban astrobiology discussions just to keep a lid on UFOlogists and the like. Good luck to you, Doug.

That's a bit heavy handed...care to elaborate on the reasoning behind that?

So be it. I am sure you, and anyone else who wants to discuss it can do so elsewhere. I will almost certainly join in the debate over at www.bautforum.com , for example.

I am not completely banning astrobiological discussions. I'm not saying that no one can discuss it. But the rules of UMSF dictate that you can't discuss it here. It's not what UMSF is for. Everyone is totally free to talk about them elsewhere - and I'll probably join you! Yes - this is a baby out with bathwater issue. Rather that, than descend into a bickering fringe-theory conspiracy infested argument about astrobiology and methane. The price to pay for keeping UMSF to the standards we do, is the exclusion of things that may risk damaging it.

That's a somewhat contradictory statement.

If you want, you can discuss it on the Extrasolar Visions' website.
http://solar-flux.forumandco.com/news-and-...e-t237.htm#1388

Edit - remove silly question. Apologies for the noise.


Seasonal variation is interesting, surely if the methane is being generated relatively far from the surface seasonal temperature and/or atmospheric pressure variations shouldn't affect the local conditions; unless the processes that are destroying it vary, instead (dust devils, as suggested by one slide?)

And the evidence is not clear either way....space.com article here.

The part I found even more fascinating that methane being created, is that methane is being destroyed faster than expected.

The soil chemistry of Mars seems to extend into the atmosphere....
(peroxide laden dust grains possibly doing the oxidizing)

-Mike

[EDIT: The article did state that volcanism as the source is not likely, since other gases associated with such event were not observed. But down-deep serpentization is still a possible source.]

Anyone know of an "audio only" link for this? My ******* broadband connection is ******* useless tonight and the NASA TV is re-buffering every twenty ******** seconds!!!! Any minute now... ANY minute now.... I'm putting my fist thru the screen...

On NASA's portal http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/news/marsmethane.html

BBC piece.

The only way to pin the origin of the methane down would seem to be the carbon isotope ratio. Anybody know if the MSL laser spectrometer is sensitive enough?

mars atmosphere is active
Methane plumes are seen in certain regions (Nills Fossea, Syrtis)
Methane then breaks down over months
It appears to be seasonal (lowest levels at equinoxes)
It could be geologic (simplest)
It could be biologic (ties into seasons?)
Nobody knows yet.

More study required

Probably not even then. As just mentioned in the broadcast, other biomarker gases could be used to support a biogenic origin. But do really pin down the origin and the process you'd need to get to right to the source.

Drill, baby, drill!

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, in this forum, with these rules. It's not as if people can't go and talk about it somewhere else. Sorry if that was not clear.

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.

The source could be clathrated methane (see avatar for structure) emplaced long ago, only now being liberated through seasonal vents.

So the carbon isotope ratio could have been locked in at the time of clathration long ago.

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:


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

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

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.



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.



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.

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

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.