Researchers Bruce Jakosky, Stacy Varnes, and Thomas McCollom have looked at the biological potential of Martian hydrothermal systems, presenting their findings this week at a meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society in Birmingham, Alabama."Weve been working on this for several years. What weve done is look at the availability of geochemical energy in the environment of Mars as a source of energy that might support metabolism of organisms," Jakosky told SPACE.com. On Earth there are organisms that use that source of energy - energy given off by chemical weathering reactions like oxidation of iron and minerals, Jakosky said.Organisms on Mars could, in a figurative sense, stick their finger into that reaction, mediate it, and take advantage of the energy, Jakosky said. "What weve done is to look at the types of environments that occur on Mars and use them as a constraint to calculate how much energy could be available," he added.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_biological_021011.html
Popular Posts
-
...These measures, based on the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) give far too much power to publishers, at the expense of individu...
-
The concept of dragons was probably brought to Japan around 2,000 years ago, along with the technology for paddy agriculture. Their images h...
-
Finally went out and picked up a Nintendo Wii. My god the thing is fun. Ridiculously, ludicrously fun. Hiyat and I had to tear ourselves...
-
Here's my (edited) journal entry for this event dated 12/01/98: Wow. I just sessioned and started reading "The Tao of Physics...
-
His system, he said, starts with a laser that sends part of its beam into photo detectors which produce electrical signal that feed back to ...
-
The challenge of having the United States as a neighbour was one of the topics discussed Tuesday during a meeting with Mexican President Vic...
-
Someone that gets it. Service-oriented software, when done correctly in a platform-agnostic way can be flexible, cheap, and can motivate m...
-
...why was this given the file name of skyfall?... Certain information, while not specific as to target, gives the government reason to beli...
-
When it comes to buying equipment, think g, not b. New 802.11g hardware is nearly five times faster than 802.11b gear, and it will interoper...
-
This edition provides a prose rendering of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the cycle of poems preserved on clay tablets surviving from ancient Mesopo...
