A group of NASA researchers led by planetary scientist Alexander Pavlov may now have at least a partial answer. The team suggests the Mars methane is trapped beneath a crust of solidified salt within the regolith at Gale. Warm daytime temperatures could weaken the crust, allowing methane to slip out at night

Since 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has repeatedly detected methane on Mars, specifically near its landing site inside the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater

The researchers tested their hypothesis here on Earth, using a simulated Martian regolith; a salt called perchlorate, which exists widely on Mars; and neon as an analog for methane. Their tests, performed inside a Mars simulation chamber at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, showed that a salt crust could form under certain conditions, trapping methane beneath it

If life was producing the methane, it appears to be restricted to the subsurface under Gale Crater. 

There’s no convincing evidence that life exists on Mars. It may have in the past, and it’s possible that some extant life clings to a tenuous existence in subsurface brines or something. But we lack evidence, so life is basically ruled out as the methane source. Especially since the evidence shows life would have to be under Gale Crater and nowhere else

What is the Mars methane mystery?

It is possible a geologic process produced the Martian methane, either now or eons ago. On Earth, the conversion of iron oxide into the serpentine group of minerals creates methane, and on Mars this process could proceed using water, carbon dioxide and the planet’s internal heat.

What is causing the methane content on Mars?

It has also been shown that methane could be produced by a process involving water, carbon dioxide, and the mineral olivine, which is known to be common on Mars. The required conditions for this reaction (i.e. high temperature and pressure) do not exist on the surface but may exist within the crust

When was methane discovered on Mars?

The finding, if it holds up, could complicate scientific dreams that martian microbes might be spewing the gas in the planet’s subsurface. The Mars Express orbiter first detected hints of methane in the martian atmosphere in 2004

Can methane exist without life?

Although life as we know it can produce methane, the presence of methane does not necessarily signify the existence of life

How much methane is on Mars?

The measurements confirm so far that the amount of methane is very small – about 10 parts in a thousand million, so its production process is probably small. However, the exciting question remains: “Where does this methane come from?”

What is the lifetime of methane on Mars?

Based on photochemical models and on the current understanding of the composition of the Martian atmosphere, methane has a chemical lifetime of about 300-600 years, which is very short on geological time scales

Who discovered methane?

Methane was discovered and isolated by Alessandro Voltabetween 1776 and 1778 when studying marsh gas from Lake Maggiore

Can humans use methane?

Methane is produced exclusively through anaerobic fermentation of both endogenous and exogenous carbohydrates by enteric microflora in humans. Methane is not utilized by humans, and analysis of respiratory methane can serve as an indirect measure of methane production

Can we breathe methane?

High levels of methane can reduce the amount of oxygen breathed from the air. This can result in mood changes, slurred speech, vision problems, memory loss, nausea, vomiting, facial flushing and headache. In severe cases, there may be changes in breathing and heart rate, balance problems, numbness, and unconsciousness

Does methane smell?

Back to sewer gas. Actually, sewer gas is mostly methane which is odorless but it’s almost always mixed with other gases, the most common of which is hydrogen sulfide which has a rotten egg smell. Hydrogen sulfide comes from decomposing organic matter. Natural gas, for that matter, is odorless too

Is methane human made?

Methane is emitted from a variety of anthropogenic (human-influenced) and natural sources. Anthropogenic emission sources include landfills, oil and natural gas systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, stationary and mobile combustion, wastewater treatment, and certain industrial processes

methane on Earth?

Atmospheric concentrations of methane are on the rise

The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is currently around two-and-a-half times greater than its pre-industrial levels

Mars methane mystery

The Mars methane mystery is the source of methane in the atmosphere of Mars, which is not yet known. Methane is a possible biosignature gas, and its presence on Mars could indicate microbial life or geochemical processes like volcanism or hydrothermal activity. However, methane levels on Mars fluctuate, sometimes spiking up to 20 parts per billion (ppb) molecules of air, but usually less than 0.5 ppb. In Gale Crater, methane also appears at night and disappears during the day

NASA scientists have suggested that methane is stored underground, and that salt solidified in the Martian regolith can seal it underground. However, the source of the methane is still unknown

Methane is produced by living things on Earth, so it’s considered to be a potential biosignature elsewhere. In recent years, MSL Curiosity detected methane coming from the surface of Gale Crater on Mars. So far, nobody’s successfully explained where it’s coming from. NASA scientists have some new ideas

Future Mars plane could help solve Red Planet methane mystery

MAGGIE, an early-stage concept at the moment, could search for elusive traces of life in the Martian atmosphere

Mars methane is hard to trace, but a solution might be on the way

An early-stage airplane concept called MAGGIE will soon kick off a nine-month NASA-funded study to explore its feasibility for soaring over Mars. It won’t go to the Red Planet any time soon, if ever, but there’s a clear science need for more flying vehicles on Mars.

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter, the first heavier-than-air vehicle to soar on Mars, finished 72 flights after arriving with the Perseverance rover in February 2021. While Ingenuity had a hard landing in January 2024 that grounded it for good, there’s plenty of room for more flying vehicles in the future

Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth. But scientists haven’t found convincing signs of current or ancient life on Mars, and thus didn’t expect to find methane there. Yet, the portable chemistry lab aboard Curiosity, known as SAM, or Sample Analysis at Mars, has continually sniffed out traces of the gas near the surface of Gale Crater, the only place on the surface of Mars where methane has been detected thus far. Its likely source, scientists assume, are geological mechanisms that involve water and rocks deep underground.

If that were the whole story, things would be easy. However, SAM has found that methane behaves in unexpected ways in Gale Crater. It appears at night and disappears during the day.It fluctuates seasonally, and sometimes spikes to levels 40 times higher than usual. Surprisingly, the methane also isn’t accumulating in the atmosphere: ESA’s (the European Space Agency) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, sent to Mars specifically to study the gas in the atmosphere, has detected no methane.

It’s a story with a lot of plot twists,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads Curiosity’s mission.

Methane keeps Mars scientists busy with lab work and computer modeling projects that aim to explain why the gas behaves strangely and is detected only in Gale Crater. A NASA research group recently shared an interesting proposal

Reporting in a March paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the group suggested that methane — no matter how it’s produced — could be sealed under solidified salt that might form in Martian regolith, which is “soil” made of broken rock and dust. When temperature rises during warmer seasons or times of day, weakening the seal, the methane could seep out

Led by Alexander Pavlov, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the researchers suggest the gas also can erupt in puffs when seals crack under the pressure of, say, a rover the size of a small SUV driving over it. The team’s hypothesis may help explain why methane is detected only in Gale Crater, Pavlov said, given that’s it’s one of two places on Mars where a robot is roving and drilling the surface. (The other is Jezero Crater, where NASA’s Perseverance rover is working, though that rover doesn’t have a methane-detecting instrument

Improving our understanding of methane generation and destruction processes on Mars is a key recommendation from the 2022 NASA Planetary Mission Senior Review, and theoretical work like Pavlov’s is critical to this effort. However, scientists say they also need more consistent methane measurements.

SAM sniffs for methane only several times a year because it is otherwise busy doing its primary job of drilling samples from the surface and analyzing their chemical makeup.

Yet, to test how often methane levels spike, for instance, would require a new generation of surface instruments that measure methane continuously from many locations across Mars, scientists say.

“Some of the methane work will have to be left to future surface spacecraft that are more focused on answering these specific questions,” Vasavada said

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