‘If There’s Life on Mars It’s Likely to be Primitive Organisms’ – Scientist

• Is there Life on Mars? That’s not the question. Only sheeple ask this question. The question is: What are those artificial structures, ancient ruins, signs of civilization … on Mars?
  –
• ‘If There’s Life on Mars It’s Likely to be Primitive Organisms’ – Scientist
  by https://sputniknews.com/
  The source of methane on Mars, which suggests life is present there, is likely to be established soon. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, tasked to seek out the gas on the red planet, has begun making first measurements. Sputnik discussed the possible origins of methane on Mars with Hakan Svedhem, the ExoMars TGO project scientist at the ESA.
  –
  Sputnik: What is your theory on the origins of methane on Mars? What could its possible sources be?
  –
  Hakan Svedhem: It’s really a puzzle, we have seen in the case from previous missions that there may be small amounts of methane on Mars; indeed, much less than on the Earth. At the moment, we don’t know where it comes from, and we don’t know really how it is distributed over the planet, and why it seems to be changing with time. It could potential he be generated by geological processes underground but it could also be generated by biological activity just like on the Earth.
  –
  We know the famous cows on the Earth, for example, and many other animals, but also understand that things like microbes, even underground, could be the source of this methane. The particular thing with methane is that it has a very short lifetime. It’s broken down by the ultraviolet light from the sun and if it’s not refilled continuously or temporarily, it would be gone by now and there would be no methane on Mars, and that’s why we see this as such a puzzling story.
  –
  Sputnik: So you’re saying that you don’t exactly know whether it’s biological or geological, if it’s a living organism, for example, that’s emanating the gas, what could these organisms be? Are we talking about primitive life forms or could there be something more complex, do you feel?
  –
  Hakan Svedhem: It’s most likely very primitive like microbes or so on, and they need to be underground because if they would be on the surface on the planet they would actually have been sterilized already long ago, we have very strong ultraviolet radiation on the surface but we also have cosmic radiation that would kill all the life on the surface, we cannot imagine any higher life forms walking around on the surface, it’s most likely something underground if it would be biological.
  –
  read more.

end