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Old January 10th 18, 10:09 PM posted to sci.astro.research
brad
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Default Astronomy and Biology

jacobnavia
They meet in Mars exploration.

Since quite a time, humans are roving the planet, "looking for life".
Sadly, I think that this is not the case.

Biology has taken the smallest part of exploration, with Geology getting
the headlines. There are no specific sensors looking for life in those
machines (there isn't even a microscope), and all information comes from
side effects of other observations.

I believe there is a specific bio test being performed right now.

Anyway, it is better than nothing of course.

Life has metabolism, and the effects of that metabolism are gases that
are produced as side effects of being alive. Methane is one such a gas.

Methane is detected regularly in Mars and has a seasonal pattern.
Curiosity, the U.S. rover wandering around in Mars, detected a spike in
methane concentration that surpassed greatly the almost inexistent
background concentration of that gas.

There is ample evidence for abiotic methane. This has been suspected
for quite some time. I believe first proposed by Soviet Geologists in
the 1950's. Here's a link to a new open access paper detailing
a process for abiotic methane.
/https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14134