NASA confirms methane actively produced on Mars

William Atkins
Friday, 16 January 2009 02:58

Science - Space

On Mars, scientists are especially interesting in the presence of methane because such a presence on the planet is likely to mean that Mars is not “dead”; that is, it is biologically or geologically active.

Michael J. Mumma (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland) states within the article: "Methane is quickly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways, so our discovery of substantial plumes of methane in the northern hemisphere of Mars in 2003 indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas.”

Mumma, who is the lead author of the paper to appear in Science Express (part of Science magazine of The American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAs]) on Thursday, January 15, 2009, adds, “At northern mid-summer, methane is released at a rate comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara, Calif."

He adds, “Right now, we do not have enough information to tell whether biology or geology -- or both -- is producing the methane on Mars, But it does tell us the planet is still alive, at least in a geologic sense. It is as if Mars is challenging us, saying, 'hey, find out what this means.'"

The Science Express article, which is the online edition of later published Science articles, is entitled “Strong Release of Methane on Mars in Northern Summer 2003”

Besides Dr. Mumma, its other authors are Geronimo L. Villaneuva, Robert E. Novak, Tilak Hewagama, Boncho P. Bonev, Michael A. DiSanti, Avi M. Mandell, and Michael D. Smith.

The abstract to the paper states, “Living systems produce more than 90% of Earth's atmospheric methane; the balance is of geochemical origin. On Mars, methane could be a signature of either origin.”

It added, “When present, methane occurred in extended plumes and the maxima of latitudinal profiles imply that the methane was released from discrete regions. At northern mid-summer, the principal plume contained ~19,000 metric tons of methane and the estimated source strength ( 0.6 kg s^-1) was comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point (Santa Barbara, CA).”

Additional information about the discovery on Mars is found on the NASA article “Martian Methane Reveals the Red Planet is not a Dead Planet.”