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The Mystery of the Missing Methane

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-find-your-lack-of-cows-disturbing dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Astrobiology Magazine reports that NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered something odd about GJ 436b, a planet about the size of Neptune located 33 light-years away, circling the star Gliese 436. The mystery? GJ 436b lacks methane, an ingredient common to many of the planets in our solar system. Methane is present on our life-bearing planet, manufactured primarily by microbes living in cows, and all of the giant planets in our solar system have methane too, despite their lack of cows. Spitzer was able to detect the faint glow of GJ 436b by watching it slip behind its star, an event called a secondary eclipse. As the planet disappears, the total light observed from the star system drops, and the diference is then measured to find the brightness of the planet at various wavelengths. Eventually, a larger space telescope could use the same kind of technique to search smaller, Earth-like worlds for methane and other chemical signs of life, such as water, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Adam Showman, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, says the 'provocative result' raises questions about the evolution of this planet, as well as the possibility that its atmosphere might represent an entirely new class of atmospheres that has never been explored."

73 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. "lack of cows"? by countertrolling · · Score: 3, Funny

    We don't know that for sure. We haven't been to the surface of any of these planets. I believe more study is needed.

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    1. Re:"lack of cows"? by Scarletdown · · Score: 4, Funny

      The reason that planet is lacking methane is because that solar system lacks Uranus.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    2. Re:"lack of cows"? by xOneca · · Score: 1

      There are no cows because there's no methane.

    3. Re:"lack of cows"? by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

          I saw that in the summary and had to laugh. But you're right, we see these planets as blobs in the sky. The closest we've been to checking the surface has been Mars, and the square footage of the surface that we've actually seen isn't enough to eliminate the possibility of cows. :)

          Then again, if a rover went around a rock and found a cow, someone's going to have a cow.

          Ahh, if only I worked for NASA. Inject some footage of a cow grazing into the incoming feed, and people would be freaking out. Well, just until I lost my job there. Maybe that's why NASA won't let me work for them. :) It's probably similar to my idea to set up an AWACS plane with Chrismas lights around the dish and have it fly over roads in the middle of nowhere just to get the phones ringing off the hook about UFO sightings.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  2. Obvious solution by maxwell+demon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Methane is an important source of energy. Obviously there's an alien species which has used up all the methane from that planet.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    1. Re:Obvious solution by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Even if the aliens are bacteria or similar it's an interesting thought. Methane can be used as a fuel and microorganisms may have it as a food source.

      And if there are microorganisms there is always the possibility that there is life. However the light from the star may also be intense enough to crack up the methane molecules resulting in other types of compounds.

      There may be other explanations too - the planet may have suffered some disturbing events where it lost a major part of it's atmosphere.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:Obvious solution by reverseengineer · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The reaction being looked at here is interesting because it is the same reaction used on Earth in the steam reforming of methane to produce hydrogen, with the same equilibrium issues. Methane (or many other hydrocarbons) can be reacted with water vapor to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. However, this reaction is not going to proceed forward under normal atmospheric conditions on Earth, and at least was not expected to proceed forward under the conditions of GJ 436b. The reaction needs enough energy put in to break apart methane and water molecules before their components can be recombined to form CO and hydrogen. In the absence of catalysts, you should expect this step to occur at temperatures no lower than around 920K, while GJ 436b is believed to be at 800K.

      We can look at some of the possibilities of what could be happening on GJ 436b:
      CH4 + H2O is in equilibrium with CO + 3 H2 (with a change in enthalpy of +206kJ/mol)
      1. The temperature of GJ 436b could be higher than what is measured. If the temperature is actually above around 920K, then the necessary activation energy is present to get this reaction headed to the right side of the equation. This solves the mystery, but then opens a new mystery of why the temperature measurement is off by over 100K.
      2. A reaction product is rapidly being taken away after formation. If either carbon monoxide or hydrogen were somehow continuously removed from the site of the reaction, the reaction equilibrium would keep favoring the generation of more CO and H2 rather than reversing to make more methane and water. This is what the suggestion of "vertical mixing" is alluding to: if the "steam methane reforming" reaction is isolated to one region of the atmosphere, but the reaction products rapidly migrate to another, then the reaction equilibrium makes sense.
      3. When steam reforming of methane is done as an industrial process on Earth, the reactions are carried out at temperatures of about 700-800K, right around the temperature of GJ 436b. The necessary activation energy is lowered by metal catalysts (usually nickel) Could the interaction of the atmosphere with the rocky core be catalyzing this reaction? It's unlikely that there's enough surface area to transform the whole atmosphere in this manner, but it's an intriguing possibility.
      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
    3. Re:Obvious solution by reverseengineer · · Score: 2, Informative

      I found a nice little illustration of the effect temperature has on the equilibrium of this reaction here. The calculation is actually for the related reaction using carbon (as coke) instead of methane, but the equilibrium constants are about equal for the temperatures discussed here. At atmospheric conditions on Earth, the equilibrium can be considered as shifted completely to the left. Virtually no carbon monoxide is produced from this reaction at temperatures less than about 600K. At a temperature of 956.7K, the levels of carbon and carbon monoxide are equal, and at higher temperatures, carbon monoxide is On GJ 436b, with a temperature of 800K, the equilibrium should still strongly disfavor CO production, and the calculation suggests that there should be around 13.6 times as much carbon (or methane in the case of GJ 436b) as there is carbon monoxide.

      However, the researchers determined that "GJ 436b's atmosphere is abundant in CO and deficient in methane (CH4) by a factor of ~7,000." The only way the planet could have gotten an atmosphere like that through this reaction equilibrium alone is if its temperature is really around 2000K instead of 800K. The researchers therefore argue that it's far more likely that some other mechanism is disrupting this equilibrium, like polymerization of methane that pulls it out of the system. In their Nature paper, they include a a chart of the atmospheric ratios of gas giants, both in our solar system and exoplanets; nothing else known has a CH4/CO ratio like that seen for GJ 436b.

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
    4. Re:Obvious solution by Intron · · Score: 1

      A factor of 7000 is not too much different than a slightly different Earth might look. Our actual mix of 387 ppmv CO2 vs. 1.79 ppmv CH4 is partly due to the afore-mentioned cow population. Maybe it's a similar planet that never evolved Ray Kroc.

      --
      Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
  3. Why So Much Focus on Cows? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    Methane is present on our life-bearing planet, manufactured primarily by microbes living in cows, and all of the giant planets in our solar system have methane too, despite their lack of cows.

    Why are cows focused on so much when it comes to methane? The only study I can find lists livestock making up only 19% as a source of atmospheric methane. That's little more than our industrial energy sector production and about half as much as our wetlands produce. From NOAA:

    Rapidly growing industrialization in Asia and rising wetland emissions in the Arctic and tropics are the most likely causes of the recent methane increase, said scientist Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by countertrolling · · Score: 1

      When we drill the borehole to the center of the earth, we will find it's cows all the way down

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    2. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      The center of earth is a myth.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    3. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why are cows focused on so much when it comes to methane?

      Because if they focused on rice, it wouldn't give a good argument for vegetarians. :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    4. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I didn't know that one of myth's meanings is nougat. Somethin' new every day...

    5. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by sznupi · · Score: 1

      As a guess, because it's the most ridiculous contribution (nonetheless contributing to the feedback, most notably with arctic wetlands), the easiest to deal with...yet we still fail to do it. And that's with all the abundance of other tasty animals out there.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    6. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by colonelquesadilla · · Score: 2

      Yeah but cow's eat grass, and digest, through symbiosis with the evil methane bacteria, cellulose. Only ruminants do that, and all ruminants produce methane. Any other animals can't get the same amount of energy grazing off scrub brush.

      --
      It's either false dichotomies, or the terrorists win, you decide.
    7. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by sznupi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Cows eating grass, outside...where have you seen that? O_o

      In seriousness, that's not a showstopper; especially if reduced availability of meat would, for many people, actually increase their health (I don't advocate not eating meat, I do it myself; but too many people consume ridiculous amounts of it these days, having fallen in the trap of one old adaptation - "if there's some meat around, eat it!")

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    8. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 1

      If we were to raise and eat other animals in the same quantities as we raise and eat cows, I'm sure we'd have other "problems" as well. Exactly what animal do you suggest as a replacement for cattle?

      --
      "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
    9. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by meuhlavache · · Score: 1

      NASA is ready to launch some cows in space to help GJ 436b !

    10. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by Ztream · · Score: 3, Funny

      People.

    11. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by BikeHelmet · · Score: 1

      Cows eating grass, outside...where have you seen that? O_o

      Alberta?

    12. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by ooshna · · Score: 1

      as soon as you teach them to walk on water breathe air and graze on grains or grass I'm all for it.

    13. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Cows eating grass, outside...where have you seen that? O_o

      It’s called south south America. Or Switzerland. Look it up! ^^
      (Seriously, Switzerland is cow heaven right there. So insanely beautiful!)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    14. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 1

      Bessie.

      --
      My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    15. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by MacDork · · Score: 1

      Why are cows focused on so much when it comes to methane?

      Because if they focused on rice, it wouldn't give a good argument for vegetarians. :-)

      Or tree huggers trying to "Save our precious wetlands!"

    16. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by thijsh · · Score: 1

      They already invented methane-free cows, couldn't they also create methane-free rice?

      Probably... but the vega-hippies still would complain since it is 'bio-engineered'... Most would rather have 2 billion people starve than have bio-engineered crops (even though I presume most of these don't even know about the fact that we can only feed 4 billion if we only produce biological crops, they just go with the rest of the hippie nature crowd without understanding what's at stake).

      P.S. Repost for accidental AC.

    17. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by aussie_a · · Score: 1

      Arthur C. Clarke wrote an intriguing book where the entire world had enacted a law that required everyone be vegetarian. As someone who wish he could be a vegetarian but isn't because he can't stand most vegetables and loves meat too much, I found it rather interesting.

    18. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by FreakyGreenLeaky · · Score: 1

      Why So Much Focus on Cows?

      'coz they make delicious burgers, and therefore vital to any self-respecting westerner. Please try and keep up with the conversation.

    19. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by FreakyGreenLeaky · · Score: 1

      Yes, we have lots of those who phone our helpdesk every friggin minute.

    20. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

      Because cows are funnier than decaying peat moss, OK? Now make a cow joke!

      --
      Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    21. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by arisvega · · Score: 1

      ... but the vega-hippies still would complain

      Actually we dumped all hippies in a place called "Sanaf Aran Siskh' oh" millenia ago; they complained too much.

      --

      Microsoft car: We have noticed you are in the process of crashing. Would you want your airbags deployed?

      --
      The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
    22. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by Creepy · · Score: 1

      True South America, as Brazil is, in fact, the world leader in beef exports, followed by Australia. I recall Argentina and Uruguay and several Central American countries are in the top 10 as well. Then there's India, which was still exporting more beef than the United States last time I checked (yes, sacred cow country is #3 in exports) I don't think Europe even has a country in the top 10, but maybe as a whole they get in there. That is far more than I really needed to know, picked up from my brother-in-law - he does beef import/export for a living (the majority of his transactions are from Australia to Mexico).

      And incidentally, most cows in the US and Canada outside of factory feeding operations are grass fed in the summers and grain fed (corn or barley) for the winter. There is a transition period of about 2 weeks when they switch to grain where the cattle aren't sold for slaughter because they taste funny (or so I heard... that tidbit was from my now retired farmer grandpa). You pretty much can't get through the central US without seeing cattle grazing in the summer, as cattle is a major industry from North Dakota to Texas (and extending into Canada, at least the last time I was there - I saw many farms heading from Thunder Bay, Ontario to northern Manitoba near Hudson Bay).

    23. Re:Why So Much Focus on Cows? by NeoSkandranon · · Score: 1

      No one can resist a fart joke

      --
      If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
  4. missing methane? by nycguy · · Score: 1

    Just let me finish my burrito...

  5. I Suspect Shinanigans by MaroonMotor · · Score: 2, Funny
    Adam Showman, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, says the 'provocative result' raises questions about the evolution of this planet...

    .
    Adam Showman talking about a provocative result eh? Who is surprised? I mean what else could you expect from the father of all show men?

  6. Send Cows Now! by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Hello Earth,

    This is your distant neighbor GJ-436b. We need some cows immediately, for we are completely out of methane. Without methane, we cannot create barbecue lighters, and thus no Forth of Snibbej parties.

    We have made some financial arrangements with a Nigerian prince who has agreed to...

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  7. Equilibrium by Mindcontrolled · · Score: 1

    From TFA I take it that such a kind of atmosphere is not in chemical equilibrium given its pressure and temperature. The interesting question is what actually causes such disequilibrium conditions on a planetary scale. Massive tectonic activity? Constant bombardment with a metric shitload of comets altering the composition? Life?

    --
    Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
  8. Sign of life? by JoshuaZ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is this a sign of life? The calculations for how much methane should be in the atmosphere are based off what results in a chemical equilibrium. However, active metabolic entities (life) can move things very far off equilibrium. Thus, for example, Earth has a lot more oxygen in the atmosphere than would be expected from a simple set of equilibrium calculations. So, an observer could tentatively conclude that something weird, such as plant life, might be about. This imbalance between the expected and observed methane levels may be due to extraterrestrial life.

    1. Re:Sign of life? by flyingfsck · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yup, all the available evidence suggests that the planet is populated with a very large number of anti-cows.

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    2. Re:Sign of life? by brusk · · Score: 2, Funny

      Bull.

      --
      .sig withheld by request
    3. Re:Sign of life? by Alsee · · Score: 1

      Wow, that planet must have a more advanced civilization than ours. Just imagine how powerful a super-collider would have to be to produce something as massive as anti-cows!

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    4. Re:Sign of life? by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

      I am cowed by your reasoning.

      --
      Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  9. Hawking's Methane Eaters by poena.dare · · Score: 1

    See, we shouldn't have sent that message, "HEY GUYS WE GOTS METHANE!" In another few thousand years they're coming for our cows!

  10. Maybe by JustOK · · Score: 1

    Maybe they invented non-farting cows.

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
    1. Re:Maybe by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      Folks here on Earth are working on it:

      http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/archive/2009/07/19/bill-gates-is-making-cows-that-don-t-fart.aspx

      http://gizmodo.com/349723/scientists-discover-how-to-neutralize-cow-farts-your-farts-next-god-willing

      It's a good cause . . . with no visible methane on our planet, those aliens won't be able to find us, and eat us. And our cows.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Maybe by colonelquesadilla · · Score: 1

      People always assume the cows fart out the methane, mythbusters covered something about cow farts once though, and it turns out most of the methane comes out the other end. They belch it mostly in other words.

      --
      It's either false dichotomies, or the terrorists win, you decide.
    3. Re:Maybe by JustOK · · Score: 1

      imagine whale farts.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    4. Re:Maybe by aussie_a · · Score: 1

      But cows aren't pigs. Perhaps they emit it when they do all that talking?

  11. Jinkies! by sanman2 · · Score: 1

    And I'd have gotten away with it too - if it weren't for those pesky kids!

    1. Re:Jinkies! by biryokumaru · · Score: 1

      We saw right through your scheme to hide cows inside of Jupiter, Mr Wilikins!

      --
      When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
    2. Re:Jinkies! by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

      Besides, he's the only other (non-Scooby gang) person in the episode.

      --
      No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
    3. Re:Jinkies! by biryokumaru · · Score: 1

      That's not true, it could have been an actual ghost/sea monster/space cow. You never know.

      Wouldn't that be a great, sort of surreal Scooby episode?

      --
      When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
    4. Re:Jinkies! by celle · · Score: 1

      "Ghosts don't exist, a mermaid told me."

      Well then fuck the ghosts and screw the mermaid.

      ps - the geek conditions, reasons and lore supporting going on with this could add paragraphs, if not novels, but I have to get my clothes washing done sometime today.

  12. Lack of cows by dandart · · Score: 1

    "despite the lack of cows" - I like it. It's a good analogy. However, cows would need oxygen too. And it's not the cows' fault!

  13. It's not a lack of cows by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's a lack of Taco Bell franchises.

    --
    This ain't rocket surgery.
    1. Re:It's not a lack of cows by colonelquesadilla · · Score: 1

      That would be due to the high cost of beef with no cows on the planet.

      --
      It's either false dichotomies, or the terrorists win, you decide.
    2. Re:It's not a lack of cows by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 1

      That would be due to the high cost of beef with no cows on the planet.

      Ah, but you're forgetting about the infamous bean burrito!

      --
      This ain't rocket surgery.
  14. What happened to the meth? by 3seas · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Aliens took it on their way here. They needed the fuel resource. See Steven Hawkins story about not talking to the aliens when the get here.

    BTW, the earth is leaking Methane as its been discovered that it wasn't cows causing increased methane here.

    1. Re:What happened to the meth? by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Oh c'mon, it's not like we have any second thoughts about actually probing the cows (and measuring how much methane they emit)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  15. Re:You're A Fucking Genius! by kc8apf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No one said those microorganisms are still alive. If they are all dead, there isn't life.

    --
    kc8apf
  16. The Mystery of the Missing Methane.... by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

    Where are Scoob and Shag when you need them?

    --
    If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
  17. Methane is important! by cyberzephyr · · Score: 1

    At the least we know they fart.

    --
    I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
  18. "They've cows, Jim, but not as we know it." by D4C5CE · · Score: 1

    SCNR ;-)

  19. Re:You're A Fucking Genius! by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

    And the mistake was to miss the word "advanced" in "advanced life", just accept that comments on Slashdot sometimes do contain mistakes.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  20. Re:Assume much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Actually it was six observation at six different infrared wavelenghts over a six month period.

  21. This must be the mythical Planet of the Amazons by fizzup · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This planet has got to be populated by nothing but women. Nobody farts!

  22. Re:Assume much? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 1

    In geological or climatological terms, six months is a single observation.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  23. Re:You're A Fucking Genius! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You must be new here. Grammar Nazi's get so fucking caught up on the most trivial of errors they can't actually read and comprehend posts, let alone have enough understanding to mentally fill in words that were whiffed by the OP by should logically have been included.

    *Trap is set*

  24. Reminds me... by JasoninKS · · Score: 1

    "...that its atmosphere might represent an entirely new class of atmospheres that has never been explored." Reminds me of an old quote: "The Universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine."

  25. This article should have been called by jprupp · · Score: 1

    "Alien Cows do not Produce Methane"

  26. azizajalal by azizajalal · · Score: 1

    why the cows are focused so much? Window

  27. Hey, Pickens! by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

    I submitted that one several days ago!

    Bah! Humbug!

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  28. Re:Exo-life? by sznupi · · Score: 1

    Somewhere, something doubts that waterbags evolved in highly oxidative environment, where most life is bound to or around the surface would ever eb able to maske technology and have Hawking.

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter