Since 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has repeatedly detected methane on Mars, particularly close to its touchdown web site contained in the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater.
However that Mars methane is behaving erratically. It solely seems at night time, it fluctuates seasonally and it spikes unexpectedly to ranges 40 instances greater than regular. To make issues extra puzzling, the gasoline is not current in considerable quantities excessive within the Martian ambiance, and it hasn’t been detected close to the floor in different Pink Planet locales. So what is going on on at Gale Crater?
A bunch of NASA researchers led by planetary scientist Alexander Pavlov could now have a minimum of a partial reply. The group suggests the Mars methane is trapped beneath a crust of solidified salt throughout the regolith at Gale. Heat daytime temperatures may weaken the crust, permitting methane to slide out at night time. And the burden of a heavy rover driving over the crust may crack the crust, too, permitting methane to burst out in a concentrated puff. (Sure, it is akin to burping a child.)
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The researchers examined their speculation right here on Earth, utilizing a simulated Martian regolith; a salt referred to as perchlorate, which exists extensively on Mars; and neon as an analog for methane. Their exams, carried out inside a Mars simulation chamber at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle in Maryland, confirmed {that a} salt crust may type underneath sure situations, trapping methane beneath it.
Whereas a layer of solidified salt may clarify the irregular habits of Martian methane, scientists nonetheless do not know why methane even exists on Mars within the first place. On Earth, methane is primarily produced by residing organisms — however we nonetheless have not discovered indicators of life on Mars.
And, to be clear, methane isn’t a surefire signal of life; the gasoline will be produced by geological processes as effectively.
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“It is a story with a whole lot of plot twists,” Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s venture scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, mentioned in a assertion. “A number of the methane work should be left to future floor spacecraft which can be extra targeted on answering these particular questions.”
A paper on the group’s analysis was printed on March 9, 2024, within the Journal of Geophysical Analysis.
