A Mars The orbiter led by the European Space Agency (ESA) has sniffed out two never-before-seen chemical signatures in the red planet’s atmosphere. This discovery could solve an ancient mystery of Martian methane.
Both detections come from ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter, which was launched in 2016 as part of the first installment of ExoMars, a European-Russian association of two launches to the Red Planet. What is particularly strange about the detections, the scientists say, is that they align with where the scientists would search for methane, a key component in the seek life on Mars. That unlikely alignment means that these compounds can interfere with scientists’ attempts to search for methane.
“These characteristics are puzzling and surprising,” Kevin Olsen, a planetary scientist at Oxford University and a researcher on the project, said in an ESA statement. “They are over the exact wavelength range where we expected to see the strongest signs of methane.”
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Scientists are fascinated by methane (or its absence) on Mars Because, at least here on Earth, while geological processes produce a little gas, most of it comes from living things. That connection turns methane into a possible biological signature, a marker that life could be near. The gas also has a relatively short life, which means that if methane is detected on Mars, it must have formed in the last few hundred years.
Researchers have tentatively identified methane on the red planet sometimes differently, even based on data gathered by NASA’s Curiosity rover and by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter. But those detections have been unclear and complicated, including frequent apparent mismatches between data collected in the field and observations from orbit.
This new detection of other gases, oddly aligned with where scientists often search for methane, could help explain why the issue of methane in Mars’ atmosphere has been so difficult to pin down, the scientists behind the new research said.
Carbon dioxide and ozone, unfortunately, are much more common on the Red Planet than methane, and scientists have seen both compounds many times: carbon dioxide dominates the planet’s thin atmosphere. But the Trace Gas Orbiter was able to measure them more accurately, thanks to an instrument called the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite that “tests” the different components Enveloping Mars.
While these compounds have been “sniffed” on Mars before, these new observations are still intriguing, the scientists said. For example, the strange carbon dioxide signal, the researchers suspect, may point to a previously unknown interaction between gas and other compounds in the atmosphere, or between gas and sunlight.
And, although researchers usually study Martian ozone Using ultraviolet measurements, the new detection was based on observations with infrared light. And, since ultraviolet measurements only work for ozone at higher altitudes, using infrared instruments could allow scientists to develop a much better understanding of how ozone behaves low in the atmosphere, closer to the surface of Mars. .
“Ozone and [carbon dioxide] they are important in the atmosphere of Mars, “said Alexander Trokhimovskiy, an engineer at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and a researcher on the project, in the same statement.” By not taking these gases into account correctly, we run the risk of mischaracterizing the phenomena or properties we see. “
The Gas Orbiter traces, along with the Mars rover Schiaparelli failed, composed the 2016 launch of the ExoMars program, a partnership between ESA and Russia. The program’s second release, which includes a rover named Rosalind Franklin, was released this summer, but delayed until 2022 this spring due to parachute problems and complications from the coronavirus pandemic.
That mission will bring similar instruments to the Atmospheric Chemistry Suite at the Trace Gas Orbiter, allowing scientists to compare orbital data with measurements from the surface.
The research is described in two documents published in the July issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
