{"id":13747,"date":"2018-06-07T22:37:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T14:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/more-signs-of-past-and-possibly-present-habitability-of-mars\/"},"modified":"2018-06-07T22:37:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T14:37:57","slug":"more-signs-of-past-and-possibly-present-habitability-of-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/more-signs-of-past-and-possibly-present-habitability-of-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"More signs of past \u2014 and possibly present \u2014 habitability of Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

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Credit: NASA\/GSFC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA\u2019s Mars Curiosity rover, slowly making its way up the side of a towering mountain of sedimentary rock at the center of its Gale Crater landing site, has found fresh evidence for the red planet\u2019s past \u2014 and possibly present \u2014 habitability, scientists reported Thursday.<\/p>\n

The nuclear-powered rover has detected a variety of organic compounds, a requirement for life as it\u2019s known on Earth, in three-billion-year-old rocks deposited on the floor of Gale Crater. While organics were discovered by the rover earlier, the age and variety of the newly analyzed samples strengthen the case for a habitable environment in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found organic molecules in rocks from an ancient lakebed,\u201d said Jen Eigenbrode, a research scientist and astrobiologist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. \u201cThose organic molecules could have come from life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a second, potentially more significant finding announced Thursday, scientists reported detection of a seasonal variation in methane levels in the martian atmosphere. Background levels climb by a factor of three from winter to summer, indicating a repeating release of the gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we\u2019re announcing the discovery of a repeatable, identifiable, seasonal pattern in the methane measurements,\u201d said Chris Webster, a senior research fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only have we got this wonderful repeatability, but the seasonal cycle changes by a factor of three. That\u2019s a huge change, completely unexpected. And what it does, it gives us a key to unlocking the mysteries associated with Mars methane because now we have something to test our models and our understanding against.\u201d<\/p>\n

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NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover used an instrument called SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) to detect seasonal changes in atmospheric methane in Gale Crater. The methane signal has been observed for nearly three Martian years (nearly six Earth years), peaking each summer. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A seasonal change in methane levels is exciting, he said, because 95 percent of the methane observed on Earth is the result of biology. In addition, methane only lasts a few centuries before it is broken down or escapes the atmosphere \u201cso if we see methane in the martian atmosphere, that means something is happening today, it\u2019s being released or it\u2019s being created.\u201d<\/p>\n

Methane in the martian atmosphere has been detected before, but only in isolated patches or plumes of higher concentrations, not in any repeatable pattern. Rising levels in the summer months, when Mars is warmer, could be an indication of on-going biology. Or it could simply be the result of purely geological processes.<\/p>\n

In any case, Webster said the methane apparently works its way into the atmosphere from sub-surface reservoirs of some sort, places where non-biological geochemistry is going on or where microbial life might somehow flourish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that best fits our data is the idea of sub-surface storage,\u201d he said. \u201cSo way under the ground this methane is trapped. \u2026 We don\u2019t know if that methane is ancient, we don\u2019t know if it\u2019s modern. It could be either. We also don\u2019t know if that methane was created from rock chemistry or it was created by microbes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But NASA managers say the new discoveries show the agency\u2019s Mars exploration plans are on the right track.<\/p>\n

NASA currently operates three orbiters and two surface rovers at Mars with a new lander \u2014 InSight \u2014 on the way. The European Space Agency plans to launch its own rover in a few years and NASA is building a powerful follow-on to Curiosity, the Mars 2020 rover, that will be equipped with even more powerful instruments to advance the search for life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these new findings, Mars is telling us to stay the course and keep searching for evidence of life,\u201d Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA science director at agency headquarters, said in a statement. \u201cI\u2019m confident that our ongoing and planned missions will unlock even more breathtaking discoveries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Credit: NASA\/GSFC NASA\u2019s Mars Curiosity rover, slowly making its way up the side of a towering mountain of sedimentary rock at the center of its Gale Crater landing site, has found fresh evidence for the red planet\u2019s past \u2014 and possibly present \u2014 habitability, scientists reported Thursday. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2927,1790,1183,367,1714,2505,1561,2933],"class_list":["post-13747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-curiosity","tag-goddard-space-flight-center","tag-jet-propulsion-laboratory","tag-mars","tag-mars-rover","tag-methane","tag-planetary-science","tag-sample-analysis-at-mars"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}