LOS ANGELES NASA's Curiosity rover hasn't discovered any signs of methane in the atmosphere of Mars, a finding that does not bode well for the possibility that microbes capable of producing the gas could be living below the planet's surface, scientists said Thursday. <\/p>\n
Since landing in Gale Crater last year, the car-size rover has gulped Mars air and scanned it with a tiny laser in search of methane. On Earth, most of the gas is a byproduct of life, spewed when animals digest or plants decay. <\/p>\n
Curiosity lacks the tools to directly hunt for simple life, past or present. But scientists had high hopes that the rover would inhale methane after orbiting spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes detected plumes of the gas several years ago. <\/p>\n
During Curiosity's first eight months on the red planet, it sniffed the air during the day and at night as the season changed from spring to summer. <\/p>\n
\"Every time we looked, we never saw it,\" said Christopher Webster, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who led the research published online in the journal Science. <\/p>\n
Webster said while the result was \"disappointing in many ways,\" the hunt for the elusive gas continues. <\/p>\n
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NASA rover finds no methane on Mars in blow to search for life<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LOS ANGELES NASA's Curiosity rover hasn't discovered any signs of methane in the atmosphere of Mars, a finding that does not bode well for the possibility that microbes capable of producing the gas could be living below the planet's surface, scientists said Thursday. Continue reading