Space & Astronomy

Curiosity rover confirms methane on Mars

By T.K. Randall
March 1, 2015

Image: Curiosity Rover
Credit: (PD) NASA/JPL-Caltech via Wikimedia Commons The presence of methane on the Red Planet, a gas that on Earth is predominantly a product of biological activity, has been a matter of considerable debate ever since traces of it were first picked up by telescopes on Earth more than a decade ago.

Now NASA's Curiosity rover has been able to satisfactorily confirm that methane is indeed present in the Martian atmosphere, a tantalizing indicator that life forms may exist or may have once existed on what is now a cold, dead and barren world."It is a finding that puts paid to the question of the presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere," said Francisco Javier Martín-Torres of the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences.

"But it does pose some other more complex and far-reaching questions, such as the nature of its sources - which must lie, we believe, in one or two additional sources that were not originally contemplated in the models used so far."

Source: Phys.org

Tags: Mars, Curiosity, Methane