NASA Rover Finds Methane On Mars Hinting At Life On The Planet

We have all heard of the possibilities of life outside Earth and scientists are working hard to find evidence of the same. Now, it seems like we have new information to prove it, as NASA’s rover has found instances of life on Mars.

According to a release by NASA, the Curiosity rover by NASA has detected a high amount of methane gas on Mars (mostly released in the presence of living organisms), which suggests that microbes exist on the red planet.

It is suggested that the presence of methane on Mars implies that it has been released recently as the gas released previously would have broken up into other components.

Another theory suggests that methane could be present on Mars for a very long time and is being released in the Martian air via cracks.

“With our current measurements, we have no way of telling if the methane source is biology or geology, or even ancient or modern,” said SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

For those who don’t know, this incident is not the first one and methane has been found on Mars previously as well, back in 2012 and 2013. While the presence of Methane on Mars has been going up and down, this time it was found in 21 parts per billion in quantity, which is seven times the previous detection.

However, there is no concrete explanation of the presence of Methane at the time of writing. NASA will conduct a follow-up experiment on the data to come up with better conclusions.

Hence, stay tuned to Fossbytes for more such updates!

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