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It was very moving that the Curiosity mobile had detected methane on Mars. But there was a problem: we could not exclude that its sensors were wavy, or something was misinterpreted.
It now seems that we can put an end to this concern, because an independent source has also detected methane on Mars.
On June 16, 2013, a day before Curiosity detects methane in the same region, the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, orbiting the Red Planet, has caught a rush of substance near the crater Gale – the region explored by Curiosity.
Other instruments have detected methane on Mars. But this is the first time that two separate devices detect methane (CH4) in the same region at the same time.
"Despite various detections reported by separate groups and different experiments, and although plausible mechanisms have been proposed to explain the observed abundance, variability, and lifetime of methane in the Martian atmosphere. At present, the debate over methane still divides the community of Mars, "said global scientist Marco Giuranna. of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica of Italy told ScienceAlert.
"Prior to our study, the methane detections on Mars were not confirmed by independent observations.This last discovery constitutes the first independent confirmation of a methane detection."
This makes the previous detections more difficult to explain as a problem in the data, a poor spectral resolution, or even – as we have said – methane that was part of Curiosity at the beginning.
Nope. This methane is definitely Martian.
And that could really be a big deal. On Earth, we have a good amount – about 1,800 parts per billion in volume (ppbv) in the atmosphere in 2011, of which 90 to 95% is generated by living creatures or dead.
Some geological processes can generate methane in an abiotic way. On giant gas and ice such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, a large amount of methane is produced by chemical processes.
Pluto has methane ice. The moon of Saturn Titan has lakes of liquid methane. Things are not really rare in the solar system.
Also on Mars, the overall concentration is tiny in relation to the Earth's – it is bursting, with a global average of just 10 ppbv. But determine where Martian methane comes from and how will we tell something new and exciting about the red planet – even if this source is not a microbe.
The Mars Express orbiter had already detected methane in 2004 using the Fourier Planetary Spectrometer (PFS). This is this instrument that was also detected in 2013, but with new techniques of observation and analysis that increase confidence in the results.
"Due to its low uptake, relatively low abundance and high spatial and temporal variability, quantitative analyzes of4 with PFS, special attention needs to be paid to how spectra are collected, manipulated and analyzed, "said Giuranna.
She added that the team had developed a new approach for selecting and extracting PFS data, analyzing it with methods that improve accuracy and "reduce statistical uncertainty."
(Giuranna et al., Nature Geoscience, 2019)
This has required a lot of work – that is why the result is published only now, almost six years after detection. But this hard work has paid off, because it has been reduced where, on Mars, we can seek to release methane.
According to the researchers, transient events in a fault area near Gale Crater are the most likely site for methane release. It could also explain why it disappears and reappears so singularly.
"The rugged terrain of Aeolis Mensae is in contact with the Medusae Fossae Training Area (MFF) and in the immediate vicinity of the locations where it is proposed that the MFF contain shallow bulk ice," Giuranna said. at ScienceAlert.
"Since permafrost is one of the best joints for methane, it is possible that loose ice in the MFF can trap and seal the methane beneath the surface.
"This methane could be released episodically along faults traversing permafrost due to partial melting of ice, gas pressure build-up induced by gas accumulation during migration , or stresses due to planetary adjustments or local impact of meteorites. "
We will not know until we can see, but we now know that further investigation would be worth it.
Meanwhile, the search for methane is underway. The PFS instrument continues to monitor the Martian atmosphere and its full data backlog will be reanalyzed using new team techniques.
The search was published in Nature Geoscience.
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