In 2012, the Curiosity rover landed in Gale crater, a valley that is 96 miles in diameter with a large mountain rising near its center. “And now for the first time we have a likely source region of methane on Mars.” LEARN MORE The WIRED Guide to Aliens Determining whether the methane was produced by microbes or geological processes will …
Since methane traces were reported in Mars’ atmosphere, a debate has raged over the findings’ accuracy. Because methane gas dissipates relatively quickly — within around 12 years on Earth — and due to the difficulty of observing Mars’ atmosphere, many scientists questioned previous studies that relied on a single data set. Furthermore, they conducted two parallel experiments to determine the …
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