Princeton University Department of Physics Special Seminar for the Gran Sasso-South Dakota-Princeton Physics Summer School

This seminar is for high school students, participants of the 2009 Gran Sasso-South Dakota-Princeton Physics Summer School; others are welcome to attend. Dark Life is any ecosystem that survives and evolves without any significant energy reliance upon the sun (including neutrinos). On earth, anaerobic, chemolithotrophic (chemical and rock eaters) microbial communities have been discovered kilometers beneath the surface that can survive indefinitely from the decay of natural radiogenic isotopes, U, Th, and K. These communities generate methane gas as a waste product. Methane gas has been discovered in the Martian atmosphere and like the methane gas on Earth its concentration varies seasonally. Is the martian methane gas a signature of Dark Life on Mars or something else?