Detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars

Science

Volumn 306, Issue 5702, 2004, Pages 1758-1761

  Formisano, Vittorio ^a   Atreya, Sushil ^b   Encrenaz, Thérèse ^c   Ignatiev, Nikolai ^a,d   Giuranna, Marco ^a  

^a INAF   (Italy)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

^c OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS   (France)

^d Space Res Inst Russ Acad of Sci ^*  (Russian Federation)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

MICROORGANISMS; MIXING; PLANETS; SPACECRAFT; SPECTROMETERS;

COMETARY IMPACTS; HYDROTHERMAL ACTIVITY; MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE; MIXING RATIO;

METHANE;

METHANE;

MARS; METHANE; MIXING RATIO; PLANETARY ATMOSPHERE;

ARTICLE; ASTRONOMY; ATMOSPHERE; HYDROTHERMAL VENT; INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SPACE FLIGHT;

ARCHAEA; ATMOSPHERE; BACTERIA; EXOBIOLOGY; EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENT; HYDROGEN; MARS; METEOROIDS; METHANE; PRESSURE; SPACECRAFT; SPECTROSCOPY, FOURIER TRANSFORM INFRARED; VOLCANIC ERUPTION; WATER;

EID: 10044292719     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1101732     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. P. J. Boston, M. V. Ivanov, C. P. McKay, Icarus 95, 300 (1992).
2. B. P. Weiss, Y. L. Yung, K. H. Nealson, Pub. Natl. Acad. Sci. 97, 1395 (2000).
3. A. Wallendahl, A. H. Triemann, Lunar Planet. Sci. Conf. XXX, abstract 1268 (1999).
4. M. D. Max, S. M. Clifford, J. Geophys. Res. 105, 4165 (2000).
5. A. S. Wong, S. K. Atreya, Th. Encrenaz, J. Geophys. Res. 108, 5026 (2003).
6. M. E. Kress, C. P. McKay, Icarus 168, 475 (2004).
7. 2O and CO, characterization of aerosols and clouds, and identification of trace species. Surface temperatures and spectral information about the composition of soil and polar deposits are also obtained.
8. V. Formisano, in preparation.
9. M. Giuranna, in preparation.
10. See the discussion on the SNR and NER in the supporting online material (SOM).
11. The data cover the period from January 2004 through early February 2004 (areocentric longitude of the Sun = 330° to 350°) and the May 2004 period. This period is long compared with the average transport period in the atmosphere (less than 1 week for global dust storms), and it is short with respect to the martian year and a martian season.
12. See the discussion in the SOM on the computation of synthetic spectra.
13. N. I. Ignatiev, in preparation.
14. R. T. Clancy, M. J. Wolff, P. R. Christensen, J. Geophys. Res. 108, 2-1 (2003).
15. S. G. Warren, Appl. Opt. 23, 1206 (1984).
16. See SOM-1 for the definition of global average methane mixing ratio.
17. W. C. Maguire, Icarus 32, 85 (1977).
18. V. A. Krasnopolsky, G. L. Bjoraker, M. J. Mumma, D. E. Jennings, J. Geophys. Res. 102, 6525 (1997).
19. M. J. Mumma, R. E. Novak, M. A. DiSanti, B. P. Bonev, "A sensitive search for methane on Mars," paper presented at the American Association of Science, Division of Planetary Science Meeting, Monterey, CA, September 2003.
20. V. A. Krasnopolsky, J. P. Maillard, T. C. Owen, abstract, European Geosciences Union Meeting, Nice, France, 26 April 2004.
21. E. A. Paul, F. E. Clark, Soil Microbiology and Biochemistry (Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1996).
22. 2O at the surface), and it represents an e-folding time, or the time over which the concentration drops by a factor of exp(1) or 2.7, not by a factor of 2. For a methane lifetime that is shorter by a factor of 2, the required methane flux would be roughly twice as large.
23. A. S. Wong, S. K. Atreya, V. Formisano, Th. Encrenaz, N. Ignatiev, Adv. Space Res. 33, 2236 (2004).
24. G. Flynn, Earth Moon Planets 72, 469 (1996).
25. J. R. Cronin, S. Pizzarello, D. P. Cruikshank, in Meteorites and the Early Solar System, J. J. Kerridge, M. S. Matthews, Eds. (Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1988), pp. 819-857.
26. E. L. Gibb, M. J. Mumma, N. Dello Russo, M. A. DiSanti, K. Magee-Sauer, Icarus 165, 391 (2003).
27. H. F. Levison, M. J. Duncan, K. Zahnle, M. Holman, L. Dones, Icarus 143, 415 (2000).
28. See the computation in the SOM.
29. D. I. Foustouskos, W. E. Seyfried, Science 304, 1002 (2004).
30. F. H. Chapelle et al., Nature 415, 312 (2002).
31. T. O. Stevens, J. P. McKinley, Science 270, 450 (1995).
32. R. J. Parkes et al., Nature 371, 410 (1994).
33. E. Lellouch, G. Paubert, T. Encrenaz, Planet. Space Sci. 39, 219 (1991).
34. S. K. Atreya, J. Ceophys. Res. 99, 13133 (1994).
35. S. K. Atreya, Z. G. Gu, Adv. Space Res. 16, 57 (1995).
36. H. Nair, M. Allen, A. D. Anbar, Y. L. Yung, R. T. Clancy, Icarus 111, 124 (1994).
37. V. Krasnopolsky, M. Mumma, R. G. Gladstone, Science 280, 1576 (1998).
38. Y.-L. Yung, W. B. DeMore, Photochemistry of Planetary Atmospheres (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1999).
39. M. E. Summers, B. J. Lieb, E. Chapman, Y. L. Yung, Geophys. Res. Lett. 29, 2171 (2002).
40. The PF5 was built at the Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, and the investigation is being funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the context of the Italian participation in the Mars Express mission of the European Space Agency. S.A. acknowledges support from NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory for participation in the Mars Express project. We are grateful to V. Cottini for a number of synthetic spectra computations and to A. Maturilli for the mapping figure.