Re: Article - SETI ... and the Aliens Conundrum - Part I

Mike Williams wrote:
Wasn't it Max who wrote:

What is so highly 'unstable' in our atmosphere that it is absolutely
indicative of life ? Oxygen ?

Reasonable quantities of Oxygen and Methane in the same atmosphere.

Over periods that are quite short relative to the life of a planet,
Oxygen and Methane would react with each other to produce Carbon Dioxide
and Water. So you only get an atmosphere that contains both if there are
processes that continuously create them.

And therefore there is life on Mars -- until it is argued away which is in progress and in fact may have succeeded. So why not send a microscope and look for motion? Why not build upon the Viking lander? Screw that. It will be argued away as contamination.

There are non-biological processes that create both gasses. Volcanic
processes produce Methane, and it's possible for cosmic rays to split
Water molecules and more of the resulting Hydrogen can escape from the
top of the atmosphere because lighter molecules move faster and might be
able to reach escape velocity.

However, the non-biological Oxygen producing mechanism is pretty slow,
so there'd only be a significant build up of Oxygen in the atmosphere if
there was nothing for it to react with for a long period of time. If
there's volcanic Methane in the atmosphere, then that build up isn't
going to happen.

We do not want to declare life exists outside the earth for some unfathomable reason perhaps going back to Galileo. We have astronomers ready to declare planets exist around other stars based upon a fraction of a planetary "year" observation but they appear to be scared shitless of saying the data indicates what it indicates. And NASA and ESA and whatever Japan and Russia calls theirs have failed to refine the Viking lander tests.

Why not?

--
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-- The Iron Webmaster, 3661
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
flying saucers http://www.giwersworld.org/flyingsa.html a2
.