The tiny amounts of methane detected by the rover are of particular interest to planetary scientists.
Back in 2004, NASA scientists announced that theydiscovered traces of gas in the Martian atmosphere. It is possible that the methane found on the Red Planet appeared as a result of geological processes, but it can equally be evidence of the existence of microbial life in the soil of an alien world.
However, in the years since this firstdiscovery, a mystery arose associated with the presence of gas. Namely, why are some instruments capable of detecting traces of methane while others that are theoretically capable of not?
For example, while making its way through Gale Crater, NASA's Curiosity rover was able to detect traces of gas using its Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS).
Usually TLS registers about half of themethane per billion in atmospheric volume with periodic unexplained surges up to 20 ppb. When the European Space Agency's (ESA) Trace Gas Orbiter arrived on Mars in 2016, scientists believed it would confirm Curiosity's observations. But that did not happen.
Why it happens?
Scientist from York University in Toronto JohnMoores proposed his hypothesis. Moores, who worked with the NASA team, suggested that the discrepancies in the measurement results were caused by the time of the Martian day in which they were taken.
The American device worked on Martian nights,when the rest of Curiosity's equipment was in a dormant state. At night there is no wind on Mars, and all the methane released from the soil is concentrated at its surface.
The European satellite, on the contrary, requiressunlight. He analyzed the atmosphere at altitudes of about five kilometers. Because the Martian atmosphere is turbulent during the day, methane disperses to such an extent that it becomes elusive to even the most delicate instruments.
Experiments have shown that this is most likely the case. But another mystery remains: why does methane disappear on Mars during the day? Scientists have yet to answer this question.
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