{"id":18006,"date":"2019-06-23T17:50:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T09:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/is-there-life-on-mars-or-on-other-worlds-beyond-earth-the-answer-may-be-squishy\/"},"modified":"2019-06-23T17:50:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T09:50:35","slug":"is-there-life-on-mars-or-on-other-worlds-beyond-earth-the-answer-may-be-squishy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/is-there-life-on-mars-or-on-other-worlds-beyond-earth-the-answer-may-be-squishy\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there life on Mars, or on other worlds beyond Earth? The answer may be squishy"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_506336\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-506336\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-506336\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190623-rover1-630x443.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"630\" height=\"443\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190623-rover1-630x443.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190623-rover1-768x540.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190623-rover1-1260x886.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190623-rover1.jpg 1350w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-506336\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover took this selfie in June 2018 by capturing a series of pictures with a camera mounted on its robotic arm. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>BELLEVUE, Wash. \u2014 NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover has detected fresh whiffs of Martian methane, once again sparking speculation about a potential biological source \u2014 but researchers at the space agency say it\u2019s too early to raise the alert for life on Mars.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists who are gathering here for the annual Astrobiology Science Conference, or AbSciCon, acknowledge that depending on the context, methane could be an indicator of biological activity, as it is on Earth. But it could just as well be of purely geological origin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not in itself a biosignature,\u201d Abigail Allwood, a field geologist at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told GeekWire today during a media workshop.<\/p>\n<p>The belch of methane detected last week is intriguing nevertheless \u2014 in that it\u2019s the highest level detected during Curiosity\u2019s nearly seven years of operation on Mars. The concentration amounted to about 21 parts per billion units by volume, or three times as strong as a detection that created a scientific hubbub back in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists correlated that earlier spike with measurements taken from orbit by the European Space Agency\u2019s Mars Express probe, and said the best explanation was that seismic activity triggered a release from reservoirs of methane trapped beneath Mars\u2019 surface.<\/p>\n<p>NASA said Curiosity\u2019s scientists would make further observations to gather more data about the newly reported release, and compare their results with readings taken by ESA\u2019s Trace Gas Orbiter. That probe\u2019s sensitive spectrometers should be able to sniff out methane in the Martian atmosphere, but it hasn\u2019t recorded a single whiff in the past year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCombining observations from the surface and from orbit could help scientists locate sources of the gas on the planet and understand how long it lasts in the Martian atmosphere,\u201d NASA said today in a statement. \u201cThat might explain why the Trace Gas Orbiter\u2019s and Curiosity\u2019s methane observations have been so different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"NASA rover detects high amounts of methane on Mars, which could indicate signs of life\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZnK4NlLvFUA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Experts say they\u2019re not likely to find a smoking gun \u2014 or, for that matter, a tribe of flatulent aliens \u2014 as they search for evidence of ancient or extant life on Mars. That caveat applies as well to ice-covered worlds with hidden oceans, such as the Jovian moon Europa and the Saturnian moon Enceladus.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s more likely that the evidence for life beyond Earth will accumulate slowly, from multiple threads of inquiry. Those threads could include, say, the abundances of specific isotopes, or the lengths and complexity of organic molecules, or a preference for left-handedness or right-handedness in amino acids or sugars.<\/p>\n<p>Several scientists at the Bellevue meeting discussed the idea of creating a standard instrument suite that could detect life in a variety of settings, like the Star Trek tricorder that Spock carried. \u201cHopefully, a pentacorder of a heptacorder,\u201d said Chris German, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.<\/p>\n<p>Sarah Stewart Johnson, a planetary scientist at Georgetown University, said answers to questions about extraterrestrial life won\u2019t be 100 percent yes or no, at least af first. Rather, they\u2019ll take on more complicated statistical forms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re trying to move away from this binary \u2018This Is Life \/ This Is Not Life\u2019 \u2026 but really change the approach into something like \u2018this is 3-sigma away from what we would expect from abiotic processes,\u2019 \u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Mary Voytek, who\u2019s in charge of NASA\u2019s Astrobiology Program, introduced a new term \u2014 \u201ccredu-probability\u201d \u2014 to describe the significance of a biosignature. \u201cHow credible is it, and what\u2019s the probability that it represents life?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Toward that end, astrobiologists will be unveiling the latest iteration of their \u201cLadder of Life Detection\u201d assessment system this week: The \u201cLife Detection Forum\u201d won\u2019t be a mathematical formula like the Drake Equation, or a rating system like the Torino Scale for asteroid threats. Instead, it\u2019ll be a Web-based platform where astrobiologists can fine-tune their approaches to the life-detection question.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe most important aspect of this is to get real, and get rigorous,\u201d Voytek said.<\/p>\n<p>Such a process should help researchers put the proper perspective on findings like last week\u2019s methane detection \u2014 and follow the scent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the next step \u2026 figure out where it\u2019s coming from,\u201d Allwood said. \u201cAnd if you want to, go and send a mission there. See what\u2019s producing it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover took this selfie in June 2018 by capturing a series of pictures with a camera mounted on its robotic arm. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo) BELLEVUE, Wash. \u2014 NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover has detected fresh whiffs of Martian methane, once again sparking speculation about a potential biological source \u2014 but researchers at the space [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4986,1874,2927,367,2505,190],"class_list":["post-18006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-abscicon","tag-astrobiology","tag-curiosity","tag-mars","tag-methane","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18006"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}