Friday, November 9, 2012

No Methane. No Life on Mars.



Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Rover Curiosity has  found no methane in the Martian atmosphere, making it unlikely that there is  life on Mars. Mars Rover Curiosity  took this self-portrait.
The methane discovery (or lack thereof) comes from the first analysis of Martian atmosphere, taken by the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument aboard Curiosity. SAM took a small gulp of Martian air and analyzed it with the Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer and the Tunable Laser Spectrometer — and in both cases, the sensors failed to detect any methane. This does not mean that there’s no methane at all, but it means there is no measurable amount  methane per billion parts of Martian atmosphere.

No comments:

Post a Comment