A groundbreaking discovery by NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover has left scientists puzzled – methane is emerging from the surface of Gale Crater, defying expectations.
But the mystery deepens as SAM, the rover’s onboard lab, reveals that methane on Mars behaves erratically in Gale Crater. It appears at night, vanishes by day, and shows seasonal fluctuations, occasionally spiking to levels 40 times higher than normal. Strangely, the methane doesn’t linger in the atmosphere, as confirmed by ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
“This is a tale full of unexpected twists,” remarked Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The enigmatic behavior of methane on Mars keeps researchers engaged in lab experiments and computer simulations to unravel its peculiarities, particularly its confinement to Gale Crater. A recent NASA study proposed a fascinating theory.
Published in a March issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the study posited that methane, regardless of its source, could be trapped beneath solidified salt layers in Martian regolith – the rocky soil. As temperatures rise, the seal weakens, allowing methane to escape.
2024-04-22 15:51:02
Link from phys.org