Mars still remains a mystery to humans, but scientists and researchers from the NASA progress in their research. Now him portable chemistry laboratory aboard the Curiosity rocketknown as SAM (Sample Analysis on Mars), has discovered traces of methane gas near the surface of Gale Craterthe only place on the surface of Mars where this substance has been detected so far.
During the investigation, experts assure that The most likely origin of methane is geological mechanisms involving water and rocks at great depth.. Furthermore, they have found out that this gas It only appears on the surface at night, and during the day it fades, reaching levels 40 times higher than usual.. In an article published in March in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planetsthe team of scientists, suggested that methane, no matter how it is produced, could be sealed under solidified salt that could form in Martian regolith, a soil made from broken rock and dust.
The study led by planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Alexander Pavlovpoints out that gas can also burst in puffs when the seals break under the pressure of, for example, a vehicle the size of a small SUV passing over it. In this way, the research team explains Why is methane detected only in the Gale crater? since it is one of the two places on Mars where a robot roams and drills the surface.
Permafrost between Earth and Mars
Pavlov’s team prob five permafrost samples with varying concentrations of a salt called perchlorate that is widespread on Mars. The scientists exposed each sample to different temperatures and air pressure inside a Mars simulation chamber at NASA’s Goddard.
Periodically, Pavlov’s team injected nen, an analogue of methane, beneath the soil sample and measured the pressure of the gas below and above it. A higher pressure below the sample implied that gas was trapped. In the end, in conditions similar to those on Mars, A seal formed within three to 13 days only in samples with a perchlorate concentration of 5% to 10%.
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