1. No detection of methane on Mars from early ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter observations
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Michael Doyle Smith, Oleg Korablev, Ann Carine Vandaele, Franck Montmessin, Anna A. Fedorova, Alexander Trokhimovskiy, François Forget, Franck Lefèvre, Frank Daerden, Ian R. Thomas, Loïc Trompet, Justin T. Erwin, Shohei Aoki, Séverine Robert, Lori Neary, Sébastien Viscardy, Alexey V. Grigoriev, Nikolay I. Ignatiev, Alexey Shakun, Andrey Patrakeev, Denis A. Belyaev, Jean-Loup Bertaux, Kevin S. Olsen, Lucio Baggio, Juan Alday, Yuriy S. Ivanov, Bojan Ristic, Jon Mason, Yannick Willame, Cédric Depiesse, Laszlo Hetey, Sophie Berkenbosch, Roland Clairquin, Claudio Queirolo, Bram Beeckman, Eddy Neefs, Manish R. Patel, Giancarlo Bellucci, Jose-Juan López-Moreno, Colin F. Wilson, Giuseppe Etiope, Lev Zelenyi, Håkan Svedhem, Jorge L. Vago, Gustavo Alonso-Rodrigo, Francesca Altieri, Konstantin Anufreychik, Gabriele Arnold, Sophie Bauduin, David Bolsée, Giacomo Carrozzo, R. Todd Clancy, Edward Cloutis, Matteo Crismani, Fabiana Da Pieve, Emiliano D’Aversa, Natalia Duxbury, Therese Encrenaz, Thierry Fouchet, Bernd Funke, Didier Fussen, Maia Garcia-Comas, Jean-Claude Gérard, Marco Giuranna, Leo Gkouvelis, Francisco Gonzalez-Galindo, Davide Grassi, Sandrine Guerlet, Paul Hartogh, James Holmes, Benoît Hubert, Jacek Kaminski, Ozgur Karatekin, Yasumasa Kasaba, David Kass, Igor Khatuntsev, Armin Kleinböhl, Nikita Kokonkov, Vladimir Krasnopolsky, Ruslan Kuzmin, Gaétan Lacombe, Orietta Lanciano, Emmanuel Lellouch, Stephen Lewis, Mikhail Luginin, Giuliano Liuzzi, Manuel López-Puertas, Miguel López-Valverde, Anni Määttänen, Arnaud Mahieux, Emmanuel Marcq, Javier Martin-Torres, Igor Maslov, Alexander Medvedev, Ehouarn Millour, Boris Moshkin, Michael J. Mumma, Hiromu Nakagawa, Robert E. Novak, Fabrizio Oliva, Dmitry Patsaev, Arianna Piccialli, Cathy Quantin-Nataf, Etienne Renotte, Birgit Ritter, Alexander Rodin, Frédéric Schmidt, Nick Schneider, Valery Shematovich, Michael D. Smith, Nicholas A. Teanby, Ed Thiemann, Nicolas Thomas, Jean Vander Auwera, Luis Vazquez, Geronimo Villanueva, Matthieu Vincendon, James Whiteway, Valérie Wilquet, Michael J. Wolff, Paulina Wolkenberg, Roger Yelle, Roland Young, Ludmila Zasova, and Maria Paz Zorzano
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Geosciences (General) - Abstract
The detection of methane on Mars has been interpreted as indicating that geochemical or biotic activities could persist on Mars today. A number of different measurements of methane show evidence of transient, locally elevated methane concentrations and seasonal variations in background methane concentrations. These measurements, however, are difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the chemistry and physics of the Martian atmosphere, which—given methane’s lifetime of several centuries—predicts an even, well mixed distribution of methane. Here we report highly sensitive measurements of the atmosphere of Mars in an attempt to detect methane, using the ACS and NOMAD instruments onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter from April to August 2018. We did not detect any methane over a range of latitudes in both hemispheres, obtaining an upper limit for methane of about 0.05 parts per billion by volume, which is 10 to 100 times lower than previously reported positive detections. We suggest that reconciliation between the present findings and the background methane concentrations found in the Gale crater would require an unknown process that can rapidly remove or sequester methane from the lower atmosphere before it spreads globally.
- Published
- 2019
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