Alkanes on Mars

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/alkanes-mars

by nick__m • 1 year ago

71 15 1 year ago

(.pdf) https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sed/content/uploadFiles/public... ("Long-chain alkanes preserved in a Martian mudstone")

jugg1es• 1 year ago

So much circumstantial evidence of past life on mars is infuriating. Wish we could find something definitive!

augusto-moura• 1 year ago

It will probably take a long time still. Might mot even be on our generation.

Maybe if research gets more investment we could get there faster

tim333• 1 year ago

I know he's gone a bit nuts but Musk + SpaceX are working on sending stuff.

semi-extrinsic• 1 year ago

Note that we see a lot of complex polyaromatic hydrocarbons in interstellar dust across the galaxy. And we know these can sometimes have quite long alkane chains attached or "inside". I don't think we can rule out stuff like that decomposing at those GC/MS conditions and giving the same signal. And that's even before the leap to fatty acids which may or may not have a biological origin.

TheSpiceIsLife• 1 year ago

Gas Chromatography / Mass Spectrometry

symbolicAGI• 1 year ago

There is sufficient circumstantial evidence for bacterial life on Mars.

The (perhaps religiously) conservative science establishment refuses to conclusively accept it.

When a robotic mission is sent to Mars with the express purpose of finding current life, then it will become obvious that hardened bacteria spores not only survive in our solar system's space, but thrive in the most difficult environments. And what about that stuff growing outside the international space station?

The question about why certain bacteria on earth are very resistant to the sun's harmful radiation is waiting to be solved.

The threat to some of the world's religions is the hypothesis that the simplest life did not originate on this planet first. So what?

CamperBob2• 1 year ago

Eh, religions have to dispel a dozen graver epistemic threats than that before breakfast every morning. If and when evidence of extraterrestrial life is found, religious people will adapt their beliefs to accommodate it and retcon it, just like they always have.

It's what they've done, very successfully, ever since they had to stop burning heretics at the stake.

api• 1 year ago

The presence of hydrocarbons would be useful to potential future settlers too, since it can be used as feedstock for things like plastics and petrochemicals.

It can be made from CO2 + H2O with a lot of energy, but it'd be easier to have at least some ready-made to get started.

floxy• 1 year ago

Does anyone know if these hydrocarbons are in "useful" concentrations, or "detectable" concentrations (ppb).

andrewflnr• 1 year ago

Considering how hard they were to detect, I'm guessing no.

lproven• 1 year ago

FWIW I am fairly sure the name is a reference to an old Robert Heinlein novel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podkayne_of_Mars

I quite enjoyed it at the time, and I think Lowe is about as old as me...

polynomial• 1 year ago

Was reminded of that too (currently re-reading another classic Heinlein) but if they were going for that, you'd think they would have stuck with "of" rather than "on"

Podkayne of Mars is often taken to be one of Heinlein's juvenile novels (based on the story) but that was not his intent, and he said the "moral" was aimed at adults.

Alkanes on Mars

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