Russians & NASA Discredit 'Fossil Fuel' Theory: Demise of Junk CO2 Science

originally posted by: burgerbuddy
Sorry, got 5 pages in and realized it's an old thread.

Talking about methane, apparently there is a couple ways it can be made.

Is the Red Planet giving off methane? The question has taunted scientists for nearly 50 years, ever since the Mariner 7 spacecraft detected a whiff of the gas near Mars’ south pole. Researchers retracted the finding a month later after realizing that the signal was in fact coming from carbon dioxide ice. Then in 2003 and 2004, earthbound telescopes and orbiting spacecraft rekindled the mystery with reports of large methane clouds in Mars’ atmosphere.

Most of Earth’s methane comes from living organisms, though a small fraction can form when rocks and hot water interact. A burp of methane on Mars would indicate that the planet might be more alive than previously thought—whether biologically or geologically. But the “plumes” mysteriously vanished a few years later, sparking intense debate over whether they might have been seasonal, or the results of flawed measurements. NASA’s Curiosity rover would resolve the matter, everyone hoped. The rover sampled Mars’ atmosphere six times for methane between October 2012 and June 2013—and detected none.

But the case for Martian methane remained far from settled. A few months later, Curiosity detected a sudden burst of the gas in four measurements over a period of two months. - See more at: www.astrobio.net...

There is another probe on it's way there, designed to detect life.

A joint European and Russian space mission is heading to Mars.

Launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) will study methane and other rare gases in the Red Planet's atmosphere, and also drop a lander on its surface.

The cruise to the Red Planet is a seven-month, 500-million-km journey. And even when it arrives, the TGO will take the better part of a year to manoeuvre itself into just the right position around Mars. So, in reality, the satellite's observations will not start in earnest until late 2017. But when they do, they will represent the first life-detection investigations made at Mars in more than 40 years. The TGO's instruments can sense the smallest components in the air with remarkable fidelity.

www.bbc.com...

Ok, so they will try to figure where it's coming from and hopefully figure out how it got to other places.

The orbiter on that mission is right now maneuvering on the edge of Mars' upper atmosphere to achieve an optimal orbit.

The lander crashed and burned.

Harte