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Thursday, July 15, 2004

Life on Mars: One Step Closer

Holy shit, they've now discovered ammonia in the atmosphere of Mars. Some researchers in Europe recently found traces of methane in the atmosphere as well. The important thing about these two elements are that they are very short-lived, and don't stay in the atmosphere unless something regenerates them. Two things are known to regenerate these two elements: volcanism (i.e. a hot planet with geologic activity) or life. Mars isn't known to have either of these; is is currently considered to be a 'dead' planet with no active geologic volcanism. Even if the elements aren't from life, but from volcanism, then this means that the crust of the planet itself might be hot enough for life, and it is hypothesized that entire ecosystems might exist within the crust of planets.

Comments:
You know I really need more news about what's going on Mars. We've got these awesome probes tooling around on the surface. Where is the media coverage? Last I heard, one of them was headed down into a large impact crater.

But this huge news from Mars Express is great news. Poor guys lost their probe.
 
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