- Член од
- 24 септември 2005
- Мислења
- 511
- Поени од реакции
- 51
Deep Within Greenland's Ice, Microbes Offer Clues to Martian Methane
На кратко ова е сторија од „Science in the News“ и дискутира за можната конекција на метано - произведувачките бактерии на Гренланд и постоењето на локации богати со метан на Марс.
Does the metabolism of methane-emitting microbes lodged two miles beneath the ice of Greenland offer any clues about life on Mars? A new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that it does.
Scientists drilled down into the Greenland ice and stopped at three spots, each of which registered higher-than-normal concentrations of methane gas. Microbes that emit methane existed in those very same spots, as evidenced by telltale fluorescent traces. The microbes give off methane as the byproduct of a survival existence in the sub-freezing surroundings, posited co-author Buford Price of the University of California at Berkeley.
Price believes the finding may also explain the traces of methane turned up last year in the Martian atmosphere. Other sources of methane on Earth include microorganisms that thrive in oxygen-free environments in rice paddies, cows, swamps and termites. So astrobiologists have puzzled over the source of that methane. Price thinks the ice-locked microbes could explain the origins of methane on Mars. After all, the temperature should be right at freezing some 500 feet below the Martian surface.
"Part of what astrobiology tries to do is learn about the full extent of ecosystems on Earth in order to evaluate the possibility that there is life on another planetary body," microbiologist John Leigh explained to Newsday. Because "microbial ecosystems are present in what might have seemed unlikely locations," Price's study seems "reasonable."
На кратко ова е сторија од „Science in the News“ и дискутира за можната конекција на метано - произведувачките бактерии на Гренланд и постоењето на локации богати со метан на Марс.
Does the metabolism of methane-emitting microbes lodged two miles beneath the ice of Greenland offer any clues about life on Mars? A new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that it does.
Scientists drilled down into the Greenland ice and stopped at three spots, each of which registered higher-than-normal concentrations of methane gas. Microbes that emit methane existed in those very same spots, as evidenced by telltale fluorescent traces. The microbes give off methane as the byproduct of a survival existence in the sub-freezing surroundings, posited co-author Buford Price of the University of California at Berkeley.
Price believes the finding may also explain the traces of methane turned up last year in the Martian atmosphere. Other sources of methane on Earth include microorganisms that thrive in oxygen-free environments in rice paddies, cows, swamps and termites. So astrobiologists have puzzled over the source of that methane. Price thinks the ice-locked microbes could explain the origins of methane on Mars. After all, the temperature should be right at freezing some 500 feet below the Martian surface.
"Part of what astrobiology tries to do is learn about the full extent of ecosystems on Earth in order to evaluate the possibility that there is life on another planetary body," microbiologist John Leigh explained to Newsday. Because "microbial ecosystems are present in what might have seemed unlikely locations," Price's study seems "reasonable."
