Posted on 12/29/2020 8:53:26 PM PST by BenLurkin
For many years, planetary scientists have been tracking a Martian ghost: methane gas.
It was first seen by ground-based observations of Mars back in the 2000s, then subsequently by spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet. But these observations barely detected it, and have been called into question time and again. There's been much debate, and some of the claims have been contradictory
So the European Space Agency sent a probe to Mars called the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, equipped with a device on it called the Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery, or NOMAD*. It can look for many different gases, including methane, in the Martian atmosphere in a variety of ways.
Despite looking very hard for Martian methane over a long period of time, none was found. They also looked for ethane and ethylene, slightly more complex molecules similar to methane, and found none. The best they do was report upper limits (meaning, their observations would've seen these molecules had they been more abundant than the numbers reported). These limits are low: For methane, there was no more than 0.06 parts per billion when measured by volume (like having 60 liters of methane in a cube a kilometer on a side). Ethane and ethylene couldn't have been more abundant than 0.1 and 0.7 parts per billion, either.
...
So does this rule out methane on Mars? Well, yes and no. This is certainly a very strong constraint on it. Any methane produced by, say, an underground pocket getting popped open would show a strong local signal for a month or so, but then would get mixed around the atmosphere. Since they didn't see any, that means any source like this would have to be pretty sporadic.
(Excerpt) Read more at syfy.com ...
Previously, on FreeRepublic:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=mars%20methane
They’ll find that gas on Uranus.
NOMAD?
Uh oh.
It was there for the taking.
And the gas from Uranus causes cosmic dust that falls to earth and makes people too damn dumb to recognize voter fraud.
Well there’s no reason for me to comment now :)
Uh oh.
I usually am late to the party when it comes to sophomoric comments.
Yup.
What a fricken ego!
Wasn’t me, I’ve never even been to Mars.
Yay....We did it...We got rid of the methane on mars. Guess where it landed??
So we know that the Martians don’t fart. Science marches on.
Some Texan probably figured out a way to slant drill it out of there.
The martians don’t have an anal orafice. It’s on, I can’t finish this. You know.
3 posts?
This is isn’t the FR I used to know.
And I’ll bet that whoever took it didn’t get a permit or even do an environmental impact study!
Did you know the Zags played in Fort Worth last Saturday...and fans were allowed in the stands? Of course not, local media was focused on Zeke Elliott's calf.
Martian fartians
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