Methane on Mars...digging clathrates for fuel(Methane has been detected on Mars. It's origin is not yet clear...In mars conditions methane should breake-down very fast, yet it's still there, which means there is a large supply of it underground that replenishes it over and over. Whether it's origin biological, geological or is it an earlier residues trapped underground in methane-clathrates, there is one thing certain...it does not come from just any place...it's beying released from underground from certain points [vents]. Morover - ther's a lot of it around. If it's there...why not gather it? It's a free-methane fuel! Most propably methane is trapped in a mineral called methane-clathrate, which can be digged-out (we dig it on Earth too....from deep sea)).
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A color-coded map of the release of methane in the northern summer on Mars. Credit: Mumma, et al., NASA Methane gas has been detected in the atmosphere of Mars in concentrations of up to several tens of parts per billion. Because methane is unstable in the martian atmosphere, with a lifetime of just a few hundred years, some process on or below the surface must be continuously replacing it. Scientists do not yet know if this process is geological or biological. The methane is not given off uniformly over the whole planet. Instead it emerges as plumes over certain areas that show evidence of ancient ground ice or flowing water (see map). For example, plumes were observed to appear in summer in the northern hemisphere over regions such as east of Arabia Terra, the Nili Fossae region, and the south-east quadrant of Syrtis Major, an ancient volcano 1,200 km (about 745 miles) across.
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Artist's concept showing one possibility for how methane might be formed on Mars geologically. Subsurface water, carbon dioxide, and the planet's internal heat combine to release methane that had been trapped in the ice. Credit: NASA/Susan Twardy Geology or biology?
Methane in the martian atmosphere is not stable and cannot last more than a few hundred years, because it reacts with hydroxyl ions in the presence of sunlight, forming water and carbon dioxide. On Earth much of the atmospheric methane is produced by methanogenic bacteria (see methanogens) that digest organic matter in areas such as wetlands and waste landfills, and even in the guts of some animals and produce methane as a by-product. There is also methane beneath the Earth's crust that is left over from the formation of hydrocarbons. This old methane is routinely spewed out of mud volcanoes, vents, and bubbling pools, or it slowly seeps out of fissures in Earth's crust. Methane can also be formed during volcanic eruptions and in geothermal reservoirs.
It is still not known if the methane on Mars is due to life or not. On Earth, the conversion of iron oxide (rust) into the serpentine group of minerals creates methane, and on Mars this process could proceed using water, carbon dioxide, and the planet's internal heat. Although we don't have evidence on Mars of active volcanoes today, ancient methane trapped in ice "cages" called clathrates might now be released (see illustration).
If microscopic martian life is producing the methane, it likely resides far below the surface, where it's still warm enough for liquid water to exist. Liquid water, as well as energy sources and a supply of carbon, are necessary for all known forms of life. Mumma pointed to a possible terrestrial analogue for martian microbes: "On Earth, microorganisms thrive 2 to 3 km (about 1.2 to 1.9 miles) beneath the Witwatersrand basin of South Africa, where natural radioactivity splits water molecules into molecular hydrogen and oxygen. The organisms use the hydrogen for energy. It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon."
Microbes that produced methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide are believed to have been among the earliest forms of life on Earth. If life ever existed on Mars, it's reasonable to suppose that its metabolism might have involved making methane from martian atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Link to the article: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Mars_methane.html (http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/Mars_methane.html)
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Methane-clathrate
Digging clathrate-methane fuel would be an easy way to get methane, which of course is used for various things, like: power-generators, Rovers, chemical-reactors (Sebatier mainly), Fishers-reactions (for creating petroleum parts and medicine), as a fuel for the ERV/MAV and many more.