Martian life appears less likely, study reveals
Rapid loss of methane gas means planet may be too hostile to support life
By Irene Klotz

updated 2 hours, 57 minutes ago

If there's any life on Mars, it's not likely to exist on or just below the planet's surface, concludes a new study of Mars' mysterious methane, a gas which on Earth is tied to biological processes.

The discovery of rich plumes of methane on Mars earlier this year fed theories that the planet could host underground colonies of micro-organisms. However, rapid destruction of methane suggests that the planet's environment may be too hostile to support life.

Computer models show that if chemical reactions on the planet's surface are responsible for the rapidly declining levels of methane on Mars, it would leave "little hope that life as we know it can exist at present or that evidence of past life can be preserved in the shallow surface layer," said Franck Lefevre and Francois Forget of the Universitaire Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris.

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