Methane on Mars May Indicate Life
UPI — U.S. scientists have confirmed the existence of methane on Mars, the clearest sign yet there could be life on the planet closest and most similar to Earth.
Methane is a potential biomarker, if a planet has methane we begin to think of the possibility of life on the planet, said Sushil Atreya, professor and director of the University of Michigan’s planetary science laboratory in the College of Engineering. On Earth, methane is almost entirely derived from biological sources.
Martian methane also could have been the result of a comet strike or, more likely, from a chemical interaction between rocks and water in aquifers below the planet’s permafrost.
Atreya and colleagues used the planetary Fourier spectrometer aboard the Mars Express orbiting spacecraft to discover the methane. It works by analyzing the unique pattern of light reflection exhibited by every type of molecule. The spectrometer is able to detect these patterns in amounts as small as a few parts per billion.
The instrument found an average 10 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) of methane in the Martian atmosphere. This compares with approximately 1700 ppbv in Earth’s atmosphere.
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