An international group of academics has revealed the fingerprints of methane in the samples of rock from Mars. This gas can serve as food for bacteria under the surface of the red planet. Consequently, in the soil of Mars has all the conditions to sustain life.

In an article published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from various universities Scotland and Canada immediately declare that the samples of rocks from Mars revealed traces of methane. "Our finding is likely to be applied by astrobiology in models and experiments, the task of which is to understand whether currently exist life on Mars," says 1 out of the study's authors Sean McMahon from the Institute of Aberdeen in Scotland.

According to the version of a scientist, even if Martian methane is not a food for the bacteria directly, it may indicate the presence of warm, moist, chemically active environment in which you can dwell a life.

For the first time the presence of methane on Mars, and potential traces of life in the soil, scientists have started talking in 2004, when traces of the gas were detected in the atmosphere of the red planet probe "Mars Express". 1st the opportunity to find out the opening of "on the spot" revealed only at the end of 2012, after the Mars landing of Curiosity. Now in early December 2014, the Rover transmitted to Earth evidence of bursts of methane pripochvennom layers of air of Mars, which could not be attributed to the inaccuracy of the instrument.

The presence of methane in the soils of Mars suggests that underground life on this planet have a source of energy and food repeating the kind of organic molecules, and hydrogen, which also was formed as a result of the interaction of water and rocks. Both involve scientists from NASA, methane is formed in the crust of Mars is the result of the interaction of water with hot rocks like olivine or pyroxene. This, according to professionals, it is considered obvious proof of the existence of viruses on Mars, whether today or at least traces of their lives in the past.
sections: Society, World News