NASA Interest wanderer may have settled Mars methane secret

 Methane. On Earth, it's the stuff of cow farts and burps. On Mars, it's the stuff of mysteries. Scientists have been puzzling over methane readings from Mars, and NASA may be a step closer to figuring out what's going on with the gas on the red planet. It turns out the time of day has a big impact on methane detections.

Methane is particularly intriguing because it can be a byproduct of living things, including microbes. Researchers are trying to work out if Mars once hosted microbial life, or if microbes might possibly survive there now. But don't get too hyped; methane can also have a geologic origin.

What's bizarre about methane on the red planet is that NASA's Interest meanderer has distinguished the gas close to the surface in the Storm Cavity, however the European Space Office's ExoMars Follow Gas Orbiter rocket isn't seeing methane higher up in the environment. So what's happening? 

                                  NASA's Curiosity rover snapped this selfie in 2020.

Interest's Tunable Laser Spectrometer instrument is important for its Example Investigation at Mars framework, basically a compact science lab. Generally, TLS recognizes a limited quantity of methane NASA portrays as "comparable to about a spot of salt weakened in an Olympic-size pool." In 2019, TLS prominently identified an extensive spike in methane levels.

The ExoMars orbiter, which showed up at Mars in 2016, hasn't been seeing what Interest sees. "Yet, when the European group reported that it saw no methane, I was certainly stunned," TLS instrument lead Chris Webster said in a NASA proclamation on Tuesday.