Methane plumes indicate ‘life on Mars’

United States, January 16: The researchers studying the atmosphere of Mars for many years said that they saw clouds or plumes of the methane gas rising from the surface of the Mars in 2003. This could be the sign of life as the gas could have been produced from bacteria living deep underground, the scientists now say.

But Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md, the study leader, said that scientists are not yet confirmed whether the gas has been created from interaction of ice and rock or it was released from bacteria.

NASA’s Mars science chief, Michael Meyers, said, "The evidence we have here is for an active process. We don't know if these plumes are biological or geological."

Methane plumes were found in midsummer of Mars in 2003. The first plume they found contained about 19,000 metric tons of methane.

The team scientist, Geronimo Villanueva of Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., states that the area in which large amount of plumes of methane were found shows chemical signs of past reaction with water.

That means the methane could be stored in the ice below the surface and must be melting in the summer, said scientists. However there is also possibility that the production of methane gas could be a usual process during summer.

NASA’s study process has been to ‘follow the water’ for the search of life on Mars. But biologist Joe Miller of the University of Southern California said, "I think the proper future strategy for NASA and the European Space Agency should be 'follow the methane'."

The study was conducted with spectrometers that can measure gases from afar by the breakdown of signals in light.

Researchers said that their next step will be to find out whether production of methane gas is the regular process during Mars’s summer time.

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, which will take off for Mars in 2011, is expected to clear the issue whether the methane gas is produced biologically or geologically.