The agency’s spokesperson added, “To maintain scientific integrity, the project science team will continue to analyze the data before confirming results.”
Scientists first reported detections of methane on Mars a decade and a half ago using measurements from Mars Express, an orbiting spacecraft built by the European Space Agency and is still in operation, as well as from telescopes on Earth. However, those findings were at the edge of the detection power of these tools, and many researchers thought the methane might just be a mirage of mistaken data.
When Curiosity arrived on Mars in 2012, it looked for methane and found nothing, or at least less than 1 part per billion in the atmosphere. Then, in 2013 it detected a sudden spike, up to 7 parts per billion that lasted at least a couple of months.
The measurement this week found 21 parts per billion of methane, or three times the 2013 spike.
Even before this week’s discovery, the mystery of methane has been deepening.
Curiosity scientists developed a technique that enabled the rover to detect even tinier amounts of methane with its existing tools. The gas seems to rise and fall with the red planet’s seasons. A new analysis of old Mars Express readings confirmed Curiosity’s 2013 findings. One day after Curiosity reported a spike of methane, the orbiter, passing over Curiosity’s location, also measured a spike.
But the Trace Gas Orbiter, a newer European spacecraft launched in 2016 with more sensitive instruments, did not detect any methane at all in its first batch of scientific observations last year.
Marco Giuranna, a scientist at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy, who leads the Mars Express orbiter’s methane measurements, said scientists on the Curiosity, Mars Express and Trace Gas Orbiter missions had been discussing the latest findings. He confirmed he had been told of the reading of 21 parts per billion but added that the finding was preliminary.
dada_216 on June 22nd, 2019 at 20:12 UTC »
didn't we knew already that there's those weird emission of methane on mars that might or might not be caused by life?
as far as I remember there's a sort of seasonality to it too, how is this new?
yes, I remember correctly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars#Detection_of_methane
Trace amounts of methane, at the level of several parts per billion (ppb), were first reported in Mars's atmosphere by a team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2003.[176][177] Large differences in the abundances were measured between observations taken in 2003 and 2006, which suggested that the methane was locally concentrated and probably seasonal.[178]
In 2014, NASA reported that the Curiosity rover detected a tenfold increase ('spike') in methane in the atmosphere around it in late 2013 and early 2014. Four measurements taken over two months in this period averaged 7.2 ppb, implying that Mars is episodically producing or releasing methane from an unknown source.[78] Before and after that, readings averaged around one-tenth that level.[179][180][78] On 7 June 2018, NASA announced a cyclical seasonal variation in the background level of atmospheric methane.[181][182][183]
RingStingRory on June 22nd, 2019 at 18:39 UTC »
If this turns out to be valid and we discover life on one of the closest planets to earth it would change everything. Basically means that there is a very high chance our universe is filled with life accomodating planets. Insane news!
ZakTSK on June 22nd, 2019 at 15:59 UTC »
Can someone help the poor? I'm out of free articles.