Hi All
Our weekly Science News magazine TV show "Catatlyst" here in Oz screened a "world exclusive" which explained the life on Mars theory of Vittorio Formizano - Mars Express has picked up signs of formaldehyde and in such quantities that it can only be from chemically altered methane seeping out of the soil. Since formaldehyde has an atmospheric life of just 7 hours lots of methane is involved in oxidation reactions producing it. Five million of tons of methane per year, far more than current estimates of likely present-day volcanism.
Formizano is convinced it can only be biogenic...
Life on Mars
...the reporting was fairly restrained letting Formizano explain the data and the implications. Combined with the Mars Express locality data on methane and water it almost seems like a slam dunk. The reporter actually acknowledged it was tentative and could be reinterpreted, but that seems less likely with every new water site on Mars.
All the more reason to actually GO TO MARS.
Adam
PS One thing that always amazes me is how nasty Earth was in times past. Apparently in the Triassic, oxygen was down to just 10-11% compared to today's 21%. Dinosaurs evolved the avian breathing system to handle it (maybe)...
Dinos breathed like birds
...nasty levels of CO2 back then too. Further back and Earth was oxygen poor until c. 750 million BC - thus uninhabitable by us for 5/6 of its current age. And doomed to go sour c. 500 million AD. A fraction of the Sun's 11 gigayear Main Sequence, 12 gigayear life-span.