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News  The mystery of Martian methane
Is there life on Mars? Certainly, no one expects to find intelligent Martians, like those seen in the movie, 'War of the Worlds'. However, results from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter and ground-based observatories suggest that simple life-forms could be hiding underground on the red planet. The key to the mystery is methane, a gas which is used on Earth for cooking and heating. Much of the methane in our atmosphere is released by advanced life forms, such as cattle digesting food. However, there are other ways to produce methane, such as volcanic activity. Methane was discovered on Mars in 2003. Since the gas is easily destroyed, its survival time in the Martian atmosphere was expected to be around 300 years. More detailed analysis showed that the methane was actually concentrated in three regions. This showed that it was being released right now, and we were detecting it before it had been able to spread around the planet.
Then Mars sprang another surprise. Instead of taking 300 years to
disappear, the methane had almost entirely vanished by early 2006. Something was removing it from the atmosphere 600 times faster than expected. ESA scientists suspect that the surface of the planet may be to blame. Either the methane is being trapped in the dust or highly reactive chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide are destroying it. This may mean that the surface is much more hostile to life than previously thought. If so, future explorers will have to drill deep underground to look for signs of past or present life.
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