NASA’s Curiosity Detects High Methane Levels on Mars

• In the third week of June 2019, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover found the largest amount of methane ever measured during the mission — about 21 parts per billion units by volume (ppbv).
• One ppbv means that if you take a volume of air on Mars, one billionth of the volume of air is methane.
• The finding came from the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) tunable laser spectrometer.
• The discovery is extraordinary, as the microbial life is an important source of methane on Earth, but methane can also be created through interactions between rocks and water.
• Curiosity doesn’t have instruments that can definitively say what the source of the methane is, or even if it’s coming from a local source within Gale Crater or elsewhere on the planet.
• However the NASA scientist is not sure about the source of the methane, as source might be biology or geology, or even ancient or modern.
• Curiosity’s scientists need time to analyze these clues and conduct many more methane observations. They also need time to collaborate with other science teams, including those with the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter, which has been in its science orbit for a little over a year without detecting any methane.

What are the sources of Methane?

• Methane is emitted to the atmosphere during the production, processing, storage, transmission, and distribution of natural gas and the production, refinement, transportation, and storage of crude oil.
• Coal mining is also a source of CH₄ emissions.
• Domestic livestock such as cattle, swine, sheep, and goats produce CH₄as part of their normal digestive process. Also, when animals’ manure is stored or managed in lagoons or holding tanks, CH₄ is produced.
• Methane is generated in landfills as waste decomposes and in the treatment of wastewater.
• Methane is also emitted from a number of natural sources. Natural wetlands are the largest source, emitting CH₄ from bacteria that decompose organic materials in the absence of oxygen. Smaller sources include termites, oceans, sediments, volcanoes, and wildfires.
• Methane’s lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO₂), but CH₄is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO₂.