Saturday, November 3, 2012

No Methane

The Curiosity rover, sniffing the air, has found no methane in the atmosphere of Mars.

Methane can be produced biologically, so it can be a marker of life; it can also be nonbiological in origin.  So, the fact that Curiosity has yet to find it weakens the case for extant life on Mars, but it may also be a matter of different atmospheric chemistry.

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