Methane Keeps Showing Up on Mars. NASA Just Got Closer to Solving The Mystery
CARLY CASSELLA1 JULY 2021
Methane is an organic molecule that hangs around in Earth's atmosphere and is mostly produced by living organisms, most notoriously by farting cows. Its detection on Mars, on the other hand, has been a weird mystery for planetary scientists.
In recent years, NASA's Curiosity rover has picked up tiny traces of methane numerous times on the red planet. While these emissions might be coming from some geological process, it was possible they could indicate the presence of some sort of life form on Mars (unlikely to be cows, of course).
As you'd expect, scientists are really excited by that prospect, but the data are confusing. Higher in the atmosphere, orbiting technology from the European Space Agency (ESA) has detected no methane in any concentration.
That's strange, because even though plumes of methane would dilute into the Martian atmosphere, like a pinch of salt in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, our instruments are sensitive enough to still detect that briny hint.
More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-thinks-they-are-close-to-cracking-the-mars-methane-mystery
= new reply since forum marked as read
... so methane doesn't like the Martian atmosphere, the way it likes the Earth's... knowing why would be helpful.
