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NASA Rover Fails to Turn Up Methane On Mars
The Washington Post is one of many sources to report the possibly disappointing news that NASA's Curiosity rover has failed to find any methane on Mars. "[NASA planetary scientist Michael] Mumma had high hopes for a positive result because he and his colleagues believe they have detected methane on Mars remotely, from telescopes on Earth that can discern the chemical nature of Mars’s atmosphere. A European orbiter around Mars also spotted methane. But the methane has proved ephemeral — now you see it, now you don’t. Mumma said he and his colleagues are reviewing their work to see if there is some error in the mix. Perhaps the methane simply disappears quickly on Mars, through some unknown chemical process. 'It’s possible that we don’t understand something that’s going on in the Martian atmosphere,' said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.'"
there are no cows on Mars.
As I had long suspected.
On the one hand, we've had a lot of experience with spectroscopy, and on the other we have a rover actually there.
Depending on exactly where in the atmosphere the light used for the spectroscopy data is coming from, they might both be accurate: If you were working by telescope, Earth should show plenty of ozone; but if your ground-level sampling station is turning up any nontrival amount, that means that something is rather wrong...
Were that the case, I have no doubt that all sorts of vexing questions about how such a methane distribution could come to be would come up; but atmospheres do vary by location.
As I remember from a discussion we had on Friday the methane detection claim has been held in some doubt because he didn't take the redshift/blueshift context into account. It's likely the ground observation just saw the methane in Earth's atmosphere. The satellite observation is harder to explain -- if the methane was there and disappeared, the forces making it go away would have to be over a hundred times more powerful than it is on Earth, a planet with a much more volatile atmosphere.
Can't find water, can't find their DICP, can't find methane - no wonder they have a hard time finding funding :)
The Council has declared a day of rejoicing, relaxation and release as intelligence reports from the blue world confirm that the latest invader from the blue world has failed to detect appreciable quantities of quadrohydrocarbon.
K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, addressed a tightly-clenched world: "Our collective tightening effort over the past year has not gone in vain. Long and hard have we clenched, and now it is time for all right-thinking citizens to reap the rewards. Our symbol must no more be the clenched fist, but the unfolded flower! REJOICE with your podmates, RELAX your cloacae, and RELEASE upon our impoverished atmosphere a deluge of accumulated flatulence so great that the very canyon walls shall shake, enveloping the invaders in dust and cutting off their vital power!"
When a junior reporter reminded the Speaker that the latest invader was powered by something other than mere radiant stellar energy, K'breel, in his mercy, had both of the junior reporter's cloacae sealed until the pressure of accumulated quadrohydrocarbon was released through the second-weakest point of structural failure: the gelsacs.