Study: The planet Mars could support life

by Carol Forsloff - For generations
scientists and ordinary citizens have wondered if there is life on other
planets beyond earth, and specifically on one of earth's closest
neighbors, Mars, and now science says Mars could support life.

McGill’s department of natural resources, the National Research

Council of Canada, the University of Toronto and the SETI Institute have
looked at a methane-eating bacteria found on Axel Heiberg Island in
Canada’s extreme North and found the environment similar to Mars and
therefore able to support life.

Dr. Lyle Whyte, McGill University microbiologist,
explains that the Lost Hammer spring supports microbial life, that the
spring there is similar to possible past or present springs on Mars, and
that therefore they too could support life.

The water on
Heiberg Island, referenced in this study, is said to be so salty it
doesn't freeze in spite of the fact the weather on the Island is cold.
Big bubbles of methane that come to the surface, however, made
researchers curious about the possibility of life and whether it could
survive in subzero environments.

“We were surprised
that we did not find methanogenic bacteria that produce methane at Lost
Hammer,” Whyte said, “but we did find other very unique anaerobic
organisms – organisms that survive by essentially eating methane and
probably breathing sulfate instead of oxygen.”

The
Mars Orbiter has shown the formation of new gullies, but it is not
known yet what is causing this formation.  Researchers hypothesize there
are springs like Lost Hammer on Mars.

“The point
of the research is that it doesn’t matter where the methane is coming
from,” Whyte explained. “If you have a situation where you have very
cold salty water, it could potentially support a microbial community,
even in that extreme harsh environment.”There
are places on Mars where the temperature reaches relatively warm -10 to 0
degrees and perhaps even above 0ºC,” Whyte said, “and on Axel Heiberg
it gets down to -50, easy. The Lost Hammer spring is the most extreme
subzero and salty environment we’ve found. This site also provides a
model of how a methane seep could form in a frozen world like Mars,
providing a potential mechanism for the recently discovered Martian
methane plumes.”

Environmental science becomes a helpmate of learning about the possibilities of life in space on other planets.

In short, life in some form, may

be possible on Mars.