Belches methane on Mars – Virtual Poland

Curiosity rover on the Red Planet has detected a gas, which may be indicative of living organisms.

On Earth, methane at 95 percent. is taken from microbes. Where did you get on the Red Planet? Scientists do not exclude that there could also be created or still is produced by microorganisms.

Although the robot sensors recorded the constant presence of a small methane, in some places, the amount has grown rapidly, up to ten times.

SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) within 20 months of research repeatedly “zasysało” Martian atmosphere around Gale Crater. Within two months of measurements – at the end of 2013 and at the beginning of the next four trials showed seven parts per billion. Before and after the sensors recorded a one-tenth of this level .

– This momentary increase when the presence of gas went up sharply, then fell back, tells us that there must be some source of which we are not yet able to locate – says prof. Sushil Atreya of the University Michigan, a member of the research team Curiosity rover. – There are many possible ways of formation of methane, biological or not, even such as the impact of water on some types of rocks.

Prof. Atreya presented the latest results released by Curiosity instruments during the congress of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. It is also one of the authors of the article, which will appear on the pages of the next issue of the magazine “Science”.

Prof. Atreya believed that methane can be stored in the so-called. Clathrate complexes. It’s such a structure where the lattice , such as water – in the form of ice – are woven into methane molecules.

– This is a molecular “cage” in which methane is trapped – explains prof. Atreya.

Instruments Curiosity wwierciły also the rock, which researchers gave the name of the Cumberland. The powdered material were detected organic compounds. May have occurred on Mars or be brought by meteorites.

Organic molecules that contain carbon and hydrogen, are usually chemical building blocks of life, even though their presence does not necessarily imply the existence of organisms. The results of the analysis of the atmosphere and the rocks that Curiosity leads from August 2012, not yet allow for a clear statement that lived on Mars some organisms, but it shows that on the Red Planet were the conditions in which they could live.

– The image that we receive, suggests the existence of approx. 5 thousand. tons of methane in the atmosphere of Mars – said Dr. Chris Webster of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. – You can compare it with the Earth, where there is approx. 500 million tonnes.

Curiosity “tasted” Martian water well, or rather what was left of it. The instruments analyzed isotopes of hydrogen trapped in the rocks.

– We will now work on the arrangement of the whole of the “puzzle” that brought us the latest results of the analysis – declared John Grotzinger, a scientist with the team at the California Institute of Technology.