A Startling Spike on Mars
Methane gas is a potential indicator of life on the red planet, but it’s proving difficult to track.
If humans ever discover life on Mars, this is how it might start: with a breaking-news alert heralding a startling development well beyond Earth.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, The New York Times sent a bulletin: “Mars is belching a large amount of methane gas. It’s a sign of possible life on the red planet.”
NASA quickly a press release acknowledging the detection, which, the , marked the largest amount of methane ever registered by the Curiosity rover, a NASA mission that touched down on the red planet in 2012. But after that, the agency went quiet. The news had come from an email between scientists on the Curiosity team that had been leaked to the . It wasn’t supposed to be known, at least not yet. And there’s
