Curiosity Detects Mysterious Methane Spikes On Mars

astroengine writes: A gas strongly associated with life on Earth has been detected again in the Martian atmosphere, opening a new chapter in a decade-old mystery about the on-again, off-again appearance of methane on Mars. The latest discovery comes from NASA's Curiosity rover, which in addition to analyzing rocks and soil samples, is sniffing the air at its Gale Crater landing site. A year ago, scientists reported that Curiosity had come up empty-handed after an eight-month search for methane in the atmosphere, leaving earlier detections by ground-based telescopes and Mars-orbiting spacecraft an unexplained anomaly. "We thought we had closed the book on methane. It was disappointing to a lot of people that there wasn't significant methane on Mars, but that's where we were," Curiosity scientist Christopher Webster with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told Discovery News.

Sorry...

[TWX]

I'm really sorry. Excuse me.

Re:

[Pope Hagbard]

Came here expecting fart jokes, disappointed as expected.

Re:

[Tablizer]

That explains the No Smoking sign the probe found.

Re:

[roc97007]

I'm really sorry. Excuse me.

What? I blamed it on the dog. Sorry, boy.

Re:

[Zaatxe]

Don't apologize, it's from Mars, not from Uranus.

Re:

[TWX]

Now you just need to convince them that Mars has oil, so some of the vast military budget can be directed toward 'invading' it.

Re:Obviously

[peragrin]

no no no the USA doesn't invade a country. Russia invaded Crimera and is still there.

the USA storms in messes up the place, kicks holes in the walls, maybe set some drapes on fire, and then brings in new drapes, and if you are lucky puts the furniture back into the correct orientation. We then empower the locals through bribes to continue working with us. While our soldiers head back home. Which then creates warlords that we have to mess up the place again in the future.

You see invasions mean our troops stay. in reality the USA marches in and marches back out again and again.

Re:

[Dantoo]

Yes, there were no troops left in Texas, California, Panama, Philipines, Japan, China, Guam, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Japan (again) Guam, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan.......Unless of course the people there really really begged for those troops to stay.

It's all point of view. There's plenty of Russians that think that annexing the Crimea was a just and caring move to guarantee the longer term safety of the people. Peace on Earth and goodwill to all Russian speaking

Re:

[visavillem]

...83% of the 1,274,000 Crimean voters..., that included also votes from the dead people, and the right decision was "encouraged" with automatic weapons. A fine example of Russian (read: Soviet) "democracy". And no independent observers were allowed to observe the voting.

A joke from the former USSR. When was the first real democratic Soviet election? It was when god brought Adam to Eve and told: "i want you to choose a wife".

It sounds better in my native language, because we have the same word for both th

Re:

[allcoolnameswheretak]

They voted only -after- Russia took military control over Crimea. All the while Russia was claiming that the soldiers were not Russian, and they had removed flags and ensignas from uniforms and vehicles - a ridiculous move, as everyone in the world knew they were Russian soldiers.

You know someone is doing something wrong when they are
trying to hide it.
Later, when everything was under control, Putin admitted yes, they were Russian soldiers. As if this was clear from the beginning and the Kremling had never c

Re:

[laddiebuck]

So you're saying the US likes to hit it and quit it?

Re:

[The Grim Reefer]

Mars has gas!

Jupiter laughs.

Re:

[visavillem]

Titan too.

Re:

[roc97007]

A true fan refers to him as "The Doctor", not "Doctor Who". It serves to irritate non-fans.

Re:

[TWX]

Go back and look at the license plate on the car that Jon Pertwee's car had, and at the heavy-handed use of the question mark in both the Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy eras, and tell yourself that "Doctor Who" for the character was not ever normal.

JPL article

[Anonymous Coward]

Related links:

JPL update:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4413

Research papers:
http://go.nasa.gov/1cbk35X
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/12/15/science.1261713.full.pdf?ijkey=wh80Qt3dcQZKw&keytype=ref&siteid=sci

Seriously...

[__aaclcg7560]

Who gives a fart about Mars these days?

Re:

[djKing]

That should be

Who gave a fart on Mars today?

Wrong planet

[Cro Magnon]

I expected that around Uranus, but not Mars.

Re:

[BarbaraHudson]

I expected that around Uranus, but not Mars.

You could ask the Klingons orbiting around Uranus.

When methane's around,
Fart jokes abound.
But what we can't figure
Is who pulled the Martian's finger?
Burma Shave

Okay, all joking aside, we don't know if the methane is even indigenous to Mars, or if it rode in on a dirty snowball comet, or what.

another possibliity

[iggymanz]

there once was life on Mars, and it left methane hydrates in somewhat permafrost type situation that gets slightly warmed at times

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely there is still some geological activity on Mars to some degree.

Re:

[Matheus]

Nope. It's gotta be aliens farting... There is NO other acceptable answer.

Re:

[iggymanz]

well, I almost said the same thing; just that they're ancient permafrost preserved alien farts, aged like fine wine

Climate Change

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, indisuptable evidence of man-made climate change!

Oops... wrong planet.... never mind.

Re:

[khelms]

I thought it was because they came here and drank the water.

Re:

[Jhon]

We keep flying in those gas-guzzling SUV rovers to take snapshots for our albums...

It teases the imagination

[duck_rifted]

I've thought about writing stories or a book before, scifi, with total drivel for the science part but in a way that could provoke thought anyway. It turns out that space and time are one in a much more intimate way than Einstein could have guessed. That is, every planet in our solar system IS Earth, just at different times in its lifespan before it finally "dies" by becoming a rogue planet wandering the cosmos.

The characters in the story would only just have learned this. The discovery brings about a

Global Warming - RUN!!!!!!

[pubwvj]

Oh my Gawd! It's the first signs of global warming on Mars!!!! All them dang human's fault. Especially the white, male, middle aged, Republican ones. /sarcasm

Re:

[able1234au]

not too worry as the election showed they are fast disappearing.

Re:

[pubwvj]

Coward. We love your kind. We'd eat you for breakfast.

Curiosity must have a leak

[wonkey_monkey]

He who smelt it dealt it.

Re:

[cruff]

And is too embarrassed to admit it farted to its NASA overlords.

Maybe there was something to it...

[Anonymous Coward]

So that old book "Men Are From Mars..." might have actually been correct?

Re:

[webmistressrachel]

What, so in your own words, Mars shows no signs of life, except for farting, and Venus is very stormy and no-one can touch (land on) her? Sounds about right!

Re:

[lannocc]

Mars displays a cold and barren exterior but, given time, reveals many exciting prospects.

Ok, who farted?

[MrKaos]

I bet it was someone here

Re:Rover detects mysterious farts.

[PPH]

Rover

There ya go, blaming the dog again.

The actual scientific article

[amaurea]

Here [sciencemag.org] is a non-paywalled version of the actual scientific article, including a graph showing the measurements as a function of time on page 7. It's a significant but still faint detection, with the highest value being about 4 standard deviations away from zero.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's paywalled.

Re: The actual scientific article

[MacGyverOfComputers]

They need Mulder And Skully there to determine if curiosity could have found evidence of spontaneous Alien Combustion! Lol

Thanksgiving? Too much of a coincidence

[Tablizer]

Then, on the day after Thanksgiving in 2013, methane readings shot up in Gale Crater and stayed high while Curiosity made three more measurements over the next 60 days.

Right after Thanksgiving? I suspect they did it Gilligan's Island-style and the probe really landed on Earth, in middle America.

Solved!

[PPH]

The bovine abduction [youtube.com] mystery.

Truth

[NewYork]

There is no redundancy in Universe. You''ll NOT find another Earth.