NASA’s Curiosity rover may have accidentally landed near an active source of methane on Mars

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The 2019 revelation that methane was found on Mars sent shockwaves throughout the scientific community, as almost all gas on Earth is produced by life.

Now scientists believe they’ve located the source – and that’s almost exactly where NASA’s Curiosity rover is located.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have used modeling techniques to determine which of the six methane spikes discovered since May 2017, the most recent being about “a few dozen kilometers” from Curiosity, notes Space.com.

Scientists believe they have located the source of methane on Mars, about “a few dozen kilometers” from where NASA’s Curiosity rover is located.

They took the methane particles, divided them into different groups, took the wind speed and direction, and traced them back to approximately the origin of the six emission points.

‘..[O]Our retro-trajectory modeling for atmospheric transport strongly supports surface emission sites near the Curiosity rover in northwestern Gale Crater, ”the researchers wrote in the study.

“It may sound like a coincidence that we have selected a landing site for Curiosity that is located next to an active methane emission site.”

Curiosity landed inside Gale Crater on August 6, 2012, at a point now known as Bradbury Landing, named after famous science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. The rover performed its first successful test drive on August 22, sixteen days later.

So far he has traveled over 16 miles and spent 3,179 sols (Martian days) on his mission, taking over 800,000 photos.

Curiosity landed inside Mars Gale Crater on August 6, 2012 at a location now known as Bradbury Landing

This view shows Curiosity’s first successful test drive on August 22, 2012 at Bradbury Landing

NASA’s Curiosity rover first measured a “strong signal” from the molecule on June 15, 2013. But some experts have questioned the reliability of the discovery.

The six methane spikes were discovered by Curiosity’s Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS), which is able to find small amounts of methane at less than half a part per billion (ppb).

A definite detection of about 15 ppb was found, while the others recorded about 10 ppb.

In 2019, ESA’s Curiosity rover and Mars Express spacecraft confirmed the presence of the unexpected find.

Curiosity’s measurement found 21 parts per billion of methane in the air, three times what was found in a 2013 measurement.

NASA has ensured that the methane does not come from the rover itself, with the team operating it checking thoroughly.

According to Scientific American, between 90 and 95 percent of the methane in Earth’s atmosphere is “of biological origin,” much of it coming from cow, goat and yak burps.

Other sources include termites, paddy fields, swamps and leaks of natural gas and photosynthetic plants.

It’s not known whether a burping organism is behind Curiosity’s methane detections, but it offers researchers a better place to look for the gas.

“This would make this site interesting to visit, or other similar sites which might have the same properties,” said Håkan Svedhem, project scientist for the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) in an interview with New Scientist.

On Earth, methane has a detectable lifespan of 330 years, and then it is completely destroyed by exposure to the sun. His presence, however, is not a definitive sign of life.

As such, anything that produces methane can still exist, whether it is biological or geological in nature.

The TGO struggled to confirm the presence of the colorless, odorless gas in Mars’ atmosphere, but that may have been because it searches during the day, as the Curiosity rover detected it at night. .

The study was published on June 3 on the Research Square preprint server and has not yet been peer reviewed.

In May, NASA said the Curiosity rover may have discovered organic or carbon-containing salts on Mars, which the agency said could be chemical remnants of organic compounds.

WHAT EVIDENCE DO SCIENTISTS HAVE FOR LIFE ON MARS?

The search for life on other planets has captivated humanity for decades.

But the reality might look a little less like Hollywood blockbusters, scientists have revealed.

They say if there was life on the Red Planet, it will likely present itself as a fossilized bacterium – and have come up with a new way to search for it.

Here are the most promising signs of life to date –

The water

When researching life on Mars, experts agree that water is the key.

Although the planet is now rocky and barren with water trapped in polar ice caps, there could have been water in the past.

In 2000, scientists first discovered evidence for the existence of water on Mars.

The Nasa Mars Global Surveyor discovered ravines that could have been created by the flow of water.

Debate is ongoing as to whether these recurrent fall lines (RSLs) could have been formed from the flow of water.

Meteorites

Earth has been hit by 34 meteorites from Mars, three of which are believed to have the potential to carry evidence of past life to the planet, writes Space.com.

In 1996, experts discovered a meteorite known as ALH 84001 in Antarctica that contained fossilized formations resembling bacteria.

However, in 2012, experts concluded that this organic material was formed by volcanic activity without the involvement of life.

The signs of life

The first close-ups of the planet were taken by the 1964 Mariner 4 mission.

These first images showed that Mars has landforms that could have formed when the climate was much more humid and therefore sheltering life.

In 1975, the first Viking orbiter was launched and, although inconclusive, it paved the way for other landers.

Numerous rovers, orbiters and landers have now revealed traces of water under the crust and even occasional precipitation.

Earlier this year, NASA’s Curiosity rover found potential building blocks of life in an ancient Martian lake bed.

Organic molecules preserved in the 3.5 billion-year-old bedrock of Gale Crater – which once would have contained a shallow lake the size of Lake Okeechobee in Florida – suggest conditions at the time may have been right to the life.

Future missions to Mars plan to bring samples back to Earth for further testing.

Methane

In 2018, Curiosity also confirmed strong seasonal increases in methane in the Martian atmosphere.

Experts said the methane sightings are “one of the most convincing cases” in life today.

Curiosity’s methane measurements took place over four and a half Earth years, spanning parts of three Martian years.

Seasonal peaks have been detected in late summer in the northern hemisphere and late winter in the southern hemisphere.

The magnitude of these seasonal peaks – by a factor of three – was far greater than scientists thought.

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