Hopes of finding life on Mars were crushed after NASA revealed that Curiosity Rover was unable to detect methane on the Red planet. However, NASA confirmed that Curiosity Rover will continue its search for life on the planet.
After the detection of water on Mars, followed by a string of positive indications that the planet once supported life as we know it, scientists have been working toward colonizing the Red planet. However, in a recent revelation all hopes of finding life on Mars were crushed.
NASA announced that its Mars Curiosity Rover was unable to detect methane on the surface of Mars, making it impossible for the planet to support life in a recent press statement. Researchers have conducted various studies in the past to determine whether the Martian soil had any traces of methane, which would serve as an indication that the planet once supported life.
"This important result will help direct our efforts to examine the possibility of life on Mars," said Michael Meyer, NASA's lead scientist for Mars exploration. "It reduces the probability of current methane-producing Martian microbes, but this addresses only one type of microbial metabolism. As we know, there are many types of terrestrial microbes that don't generate methane."
Since October 2012, Curiosity has examined six samples of Mar's atmosphere till June and didn't find any traces of methane, using the very sensitive unable Laser Spectrometer. Since no detections were made, researchers speculate that currently the amount of methane in Mar's atmosphere is approximately 1.3 parts per billion. This amount is just one-sixth of earlier estimations.
"It would have been exciting to find methane, but we have high confidence in our measurements, and the progress in expanding knowledge is what's really important," said the report's lead author, Chris Webster of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We measured repeatedly from Martian spring to late summer, but with no detection of methane."
Previous estimations noted the amount of methane on the Martian atmosphere to be at least 45 parts per billion, which led scientists to speculate whether Mars had its own biological source. These estimations were made based on observations of Earth and from orbit around Mars.
"There's no known way for methane to disappear quickly from the atmosphere," said one of the paper's co-authors, Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "Methane is persistent. It would last for hundreds of years in the Martian atmosphere. Without a way to take it out of the atmosphere quicker, our measurements indicate there cannot be much methane being put into the atmosphere by any mechanism, whether biology, geology, or by ultraviolet degradation of organics delivered by the fall of meteorites or interplanetary dust particles."
According to researchers, Mars could have methane up to 20 tons per year without being detected by Curiosity. This amount is nearly 50 million times less than the methane present in Earth's atmosphere.
