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Methane has been detected on Mars, and is not regarded as proof of ‘life’. In addition to bacteriological sources of methane, it can be produced through geochem
by nickff 4y ago
Methane has been detected on Mars, and is not regarded as proof of ‘life’. In addition to bacteriological sources of methane, it can be produced through geochemical processes. I am not sure which, if any atmospheric gasses would be proof-of-life.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_on_Mars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_on_Mars
- mohaine 4y agoI’m pretty sure lot of gasses would, just not the natural ones. CFCs and many other man made gasses have no viable non-alive natural sources.
- nickff 4y agoIm not sure what proportion of the atmosphere would have to be a certain gas to spot it. In addition, JWST doesn’t have enough resolution to see small spots on an exoplanet. I don’t think JWST could spot earth-like levels of CFCs.
- MAGZine 4y agoI'm not sure either, but considering the size of the ozone hole, I don't think it's unreasonable to believe it's possible. That said, we're both just guessing.
- HPsquared 4y agoThere's also a LOT of methane on Saturn's moon Titan.
- ben_w 4y agoIIRC, chemical bio-signatures are out of equilibrium chemicals: if some environment has only CH4 or only O2 that says basically nothing, but if it has both CH4 and O2 then (because these rapidly react to form H2O and CO2) the combination would suggest some process is creating methane and oxygen from water and carbon dioxide, which suggests[0] life. [0] I don't know anything else which does this, but that's mostly because I'm a software engineer and my highest chemistry qualification is a 22 year old GCSE grade B.
- sgt101 4y agoI have a Biology A level (!) and also gave up Chemistry A level after 1 year (!!) and I think that you are right.