Mars Methane Hunt Comes Up Empty, Flummoxing Scientists

Pinning down how much methane is in Mars’s atmosphere, and where, would help researchers to determine whether the gas comes from geological sources, such as chemical reactions in rocks, or has a more exciting origin—potentially, Martian life. Researchers are looking for answers in the gap between Curiosity, which hunts for methane 1 metre above Mars’s surface, and the TGO, which takes its best measurements at least 5 kilometres above the planet. “I’ve never seen a convincing detection of indigenous methane on Mars, and I don’t believe I ever will,” says Kevin Zahnle, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who has long argued that the reports of Martian methane are observational errors.

Source: www.scientificamerican.com