It's tricky to measure Red Planet methane from Mars orbit, for a variety of reasons, including the gas's low abundance and weak absorption. (It's no picnic measuring Mars methane from Earth ...

or the gradual release of gas trapped underground from earlier, more chaotic days. Methane wasn’t the only organic compound measured on Mars using Curiosity data. (“Organic” just refers to a ...

Scientists have discovered large plumes of methane gas in the Martian atmosphere, a key marker for biological processes on Earth but not convincing proof that rudimentary life-forms exist on Mars.

Plumes of methane gas detected over certain locations on Mars in 2003 could point to active geological processes on the red planet, or perhaps even to methane-burping microbes deep below the ...

Over the years, the search for methane on Mars has been provocative and maddeningly inconsistent. And in certain corners of science, the invisible and fairly innocuous gas is downright divisive.

While finding significant amounts of methane on Mars isn't a sure-fire sign of past or present life — geological processes can also produce the gas — it's still a good starting point ...

A surprising and mysterious belch of methane gas on Mars hints at possible microbial life underground, but also could come from changes in rocks, a new NASA study found. The presence of methane on ...

By Kenneth Chang Methane, a gas that offers a tantalizing hint of possible life below the barren landscape of Mars, displays a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t quality that is confounding scientists.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this selfie at a location nicknamed “Mary Anning” after a 19th century English paleontologist. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Something complicated is going on with ...

WASHINGTON – A surprising and mysterious belch of methane gas on Mars hints at possible microbial life underground, but also could come from changes in rocks, a new NASA study found. The ...

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has revealed no trace of methane, a potential sign of primitive life, on the Martian surface, contradicting past evidence of the gas spotted by spacecraft orbiting the ...