Mars methane detection and variability at Gale crater
- Creators
- Webster, Christopher R.
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Mahaffy, Paul R.
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Atreya, Sushil K.
- Flesch, Gregory J.
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Mischna, Michael A.
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Meslin, Pierre-Yves
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Farley, Kenneth A.
- Conrad, Pamela G.
- Christensen, Lance E.
- Pavlov, Alexander A.
- Martín-Torres, Javier
- Zorzano, María-Paz
- McConnochie, Timothy H.
- Owen, Tobias
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Eigenbrode, Jennifer L.
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Glavin, Daniel P.
- Steele, Andrew
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Malespin, Charles A.
- Archer, P. Douglas Jr.
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Sutter, Brad
- Coll, Patrice
- Freissinet, Caroline
- McKay, Christopher P.
- Moores, John E.
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Schwenzer, Susanne P.
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Bridges, John C.
- Navarro-González, Rafael
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Gellert, Ralf
- Lemmon, Mark T.
- MSL Science Team
Abstract
Reports of plumes or patches of methane in the Martian atmosphere that vary over monthly timescales have defied explanation to date. From in situ measurements made over a 20-month period by the Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on Curiosity at Gale Crater, we report detection of background levels of atmospheric methane of mean value 0.69 ± 0.25 ppbv at the 95% confidence interval (CI). This abundance is lower than model estimates of ultraviolet (UV) degradation of accreted interplanetary dust particles (IDP's) or carbonaceous chondrite material. Additionally, in four sequential measurements spanning a 60-sol period, we observed elevated levels of methane of 7.2 ± 2.1 (95% CI) ppbv implying that Mars is episodically producing methane from an additional unknown source.
Additional Information
Copyright 2014 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 24 September 2014. Accepted for publication 5 December 2014. Published Online [Science Express] December 16 2014. The research described here was carried out in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Cal1forn1a Institute of Technology. under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Data described 1n the paper are further described 1n the Supplementary Materials and have been submitted to NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS) under an arrangement with the Mars Science Laboratory project. Funding is acknowledged for JMT and MPZ from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Compet1veness, JCB from the United Kingdom Space Agency. and RG from the Canadian Space Agency.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - Webster.SM.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 52526
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20141210-083300697
- NASA
- Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (MINECO)
- United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA)
- Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
- Created
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2014-12-16Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences