Methane may be indicator of life on Mars

NASA scientists have released yet more data that demonstrate that life may exist on Mars. Large quantities of methane in the atmosphere can only be cause dby one of two things, either a geological or a biological process.

If the methane is caused by microorganisms, they probably live below the perfmafrost layer and may be survivors of an age when Mars was once covered with water. Recent discoveries of carbonates on the planet are strong evidence that such areas once existed.

There are some theories that life on Earth may have actually begun on Mars and that microbes somehow hitched a ride on chunks of rock that were flung from our neighbouring planet to ours during a period of heavy meteoric bombardment eons ago.

To prove whether or not life could transfer from one planet to the other, the Planetary Society is proposing an experiment that would send bacteria from Earth to the Martian moon of Phobos and back again. Sounds like a plot for a science fiction story when the probe crashes and the microbes take root on Phobos only to evolve millions of years later into sentient beings.

Mars is not the only possible habitat for life in our solar system beyond Earth. The Saturnian moon Titan is rich in organics and is a strong candidate for being the home to something alive.

Jupiter's moon Europa is another interesting possibility as you will learn by watching this video: