NASA confirms Curiosity rover’s surprising Mars methane discovery – CNET

Curiosity, NASA‘s Mars rover, has had a busy weekend. After detecting the ideal levels of methane but considered on Mars closing weekend, NASA put a end on the rover’s a whole lot of science actions to put collectively up on the invention. On Monday, files from Curiosity’s subsequent experiment filtered encourage to NASA and the spike in methane levels had disappeared, dropping to background levels.

“A plume came and a plume went,” acknowledged Paul Mahaffy, necessary investigator overseeing Curiosity’s Sample Diagnosis at Mars (SAM) instrument, for the length of a NASA town hall match on the Astrobiology Science Convention on Monday. “We’re very assured of the dimensions.”

Because the knowledge of Curiosity’s startling discovering broke over the weekend, many suggested the excessive methane would possibly per chance per chance well well hint on the chance of lifestyles on Mars. Methane is an necessary molecule on Earth and plenty living organisms excrete it, along with microbes.

Mahaffy explained that Curiosity had detected an surprisingly excessive level of methane closing Wednesday for the length of a routine experiment which assessments the concentration of molecules within the environment. The guidelines came encourage on Thursday and showed a methane level of 21 parts per billion — around three cases elevated than had ever been considered earlier than. Thus, Curiosity’s weekend plans had been scrapped to trek the experiment once more.

“The methane plume went away … it is encourage down now to under 1 portion per billion,” Mahaffy acknowledged, noting the dimensions is fixed with what has beforehand been considered on Mars. NASA cautioned because the knowledge broke over the weekend that the methane detection appears to be from a “transient plume” and Curiosity isn’t any longer equipped with the acceptable devices to articulate us whether or no longer the plume is organic or geological in origin.

What does that mean for lifestyles on Mars? Properly, no longer plenty. Even though the favorite discovering used to be confirmed, we’re no nearer to discovering its source fair now — that will possible be up to just a few the spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet and future Mars missions. Furthermore, the methane spike is positively an animated phenomenon nevertheless it has been considered by scientists earlier than.

“The methane mystery continues,” acknowledged Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s mission scientist at NASA, in a assertion. “We’re extra motivated than ever to succor measuring and put our brains collectively to identify how methane behaves within the Martian environment.”