Methane in Martian rocks
The uncertainty of science: Scientists have measured significant quantities of methane released from six meteorites believed to have originally come from Mars.
This result could provide a non-biological source for the methane detected by Curiosity in Gale Crater.
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The uncertainty of science: Scientists have measured significant quantities of methane released from six meteorites believed to have originally come from Mars.
This result could provide a non-biological source for the methane detected by Curiosity in Gale Crater.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I don’t know why you’re leading this piece with the “uncertainty of science” line… It is well known among geologists that there are non-biologic modes for the formation of methane. Serpentinization of olivine is a well-known process that produces methane.
My reference to uncertainty has to do with the cause of the methane on Mars. Up until now, every report that I have read about the methane detected on Mars, which appears to fluctuate depending on season as well as time of day, has said that though they don’t know what causes it, biology is the best explanation. No report ever mentioned that methane could be produced from non-biological sources.
Not being a geologist, I was, until today, unaware of these non-biological sources. Today’s report to me signaled a greater uncertainty about the cause of methane on Mars.
Of course, scientists probably knew all this beforehand and never mentioned it, a fact that I find very annoying. They thus created the impression that life was the most likely cause of the methane.
Life is the cause of Congress granting a larger budget to find out. Rocks being the source of methane inspires no one to open their pocketbooks.
The largest source of Hydrolyzed carbon (methane) is our sun. You can see the blue in the aurora borealis two days after a solar flare blast in our direction. ( Green for ammonia, red for boron, etc.)
One flare can add millions of tons into our atmosphere to burn brilliantly at night as it converts to carbon dioxide and water which causes our oceans to rise between five and 8 inches per century.
Mars is too warm for methane to freeze to its surface. Not so for the outer planets. We can see the surface of the moon’s covered in ice of methane and ammonia.
I propose a hypothesis that periodically our system passes through clouds of interstellar gases. These gases would not only cause the Ice Age on earth as the atmosphere is thined down but it would also block the sunlight that keeps Mars warm and the gases would freeze to its surface like Europa. After we pass through the cloud, it would take centuries to burn off the frozen gases. all that is left, and is rapidly decreasing in size, is the Martian polar ice cap.
I have to admit, life on Mars is much more romantic and fills the mind with fantasies.