Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Remember the Discovery of Methane in the Martian Atmosphere? Now Scientists Can't Find Any Evidence

posted by martyb on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-farts-given? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org:

In 2003, scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Center made the first-ever detection of trace amounts of methane in Mars' atmosphere, a find which was confirmed a year later by the ESA's Mars Express orbiter. In December of 2014, the Curiosity rover detected a tenfold spike of methane at the base of the Gale Crater, and uncovered evidence that indicated that Mars has a seasonal methane cycle, where levels peak in the late northern summer.

The existence of methane gas on Mars has been long been held to be potential evidence for the existence of past or present life. So it was quite the downer last week (on Dec. 12th) when the science team behind one of the ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spectrometers announced that they had found no traces of methane in Mars' atmosphere.

Maybe the Martians are hiding.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Remember the Discovery of Methane in the Martian Atmosphere? Now Scientists Can't Find Any Evidence | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 30 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:12PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:12PM (#777826)

    The electric arcs were (supposedly) something happening when the comets were created and other exceptional circumstances, not happening all the time. However, they due suggest that equipment failures could be more common near the comets since they basically build up negative charge at the far end of their journey.

    I dont know much about their theory regarding the sun (only became interested due to the correct predictions regarding rosetta), but you dont seem to have read the comet theories very closely (and I would agree that much of the info is not very acessible, being "hidden" away in random blog/forum posts and rambling youtube videos).

    The correct predictions regarding rosetta really dont require the rest to be correct as well, they basically just predict that comets are like asteroids because they arent unhealthily married to the dirty snowball idea.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 24 2018, @06:42AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 24 2018, @06:42AM (#778042) Journal

    but you dont seem to have read the comet theories very closely

    You keep saying that, but what is the point of reading the "comet theories" very closely when the theory doesn't fit evidence? And is deeply wrong in closely related areas?

    The correct predictions regarding rosetta really dont require the rest to be correct as well, they basically just predict that comets are like asteroids because they arent unhealthily married to the dirty snowball idea.

    Were those predictions actually made before the fact? And the dirty snowball idea hasn't actually been disproven. The comet's tail is coming from somewhere.