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Comment by labster | Hacker News Reader

It could be hydrocarbons. We just found oil on on Mars! Black gold, Tharsis tea! Now if only we had an atmosphere to burn it in.

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Why stop there. It could be an ancient Martian landfill where plastics failed to degrade.

Heck, without microbes it could just be Martian mummies.

If there was ever life on Mars at scale it wouldn't be impossible or unusual to find oil and coal, would it? Or does it degrade on the timescales that would be required for this to be possible?

tbc I don't believe there's oil on mars nor do I think it is remotely likely.

Hydrocarbons are quite common on planets without life. It's the oxygen in our atmosphere that makes them rare.

Evidence points to tectonic activity and liquid water on Mars at one point in its history so theoretically, yes. The geological processes that can move fossils deep enough to become fossil fuels could have been present along with the mud slides and sediment that are most favorable for preserving animal remains.

Earth’s hydrocarbons are a unique result of the evolution of life here. See the Carboniferous era.

Planets with confirmed life are a sample size of one. For the moment, having corporeal form is unique to life here.

Well, yes, but I was just pointing out that not all life is likely to become hydrocarbons. It was kind of a fluke.

Life is very likely to be carbon based (what other element makes 4 bonds, as is necessary for 3D structures?). Where life is carbon-based, decaying life in the absence of oxygen produces hydrocarbons.

There is silicon. Some sci-fi authors have postulated silicon-based life in their stories. (It’s been too long, I don’t remember which.) As with most science fiction, how plausible that is, is a different matter altogether.

Earths, yes, but there are hydrocarbons elsewhere that are not biological in origin.

“Methane (CH4) is abundant on the giant planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune—where it was the product of chemical processing of primordial solar nebula material. On Earth, though, methane is special. Of the 1,750 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) of methane in Earth’s atmosphere, 90 to 95 percent is biological in origin.”[1]

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-on-mars-t...

Why burn perfectly good hydrocarbons when you can produce various plastics out of it, for the needs of your growing colony?

when plastic on mount Everest was not far enough ;)

We dont have 200 millions years to wait for Mars reforestation, so plastic > wood

Also I was making a joke

Isn't that actually one of the terraforming methods proposed?

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