---
title: "Curiosity Rover Finds Methane On Mars"
description: "NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has detected methane in the Martian atmosphere"
date: "2014-12-17"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Andreea Popescu"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/andreeathecat"
url: "https://futurism.com/curiosity-rover-finds-methane-mars"
categories:
  - "Astronomy"
  - "Mars"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "space"
---

# Curiosity Rover Finds Methane On Mars

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image_2351-Mars-Organics.jpg>)

- The Curiosity team used the Tunable Laser Spectrometer of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on the rover dozens times in a two-year period to sniff methane in the Martian atmosphere. During two of those months, in late 2013 and early 2014, four measurements averaged seven parts per billion; before and after that, readings averaged only one-tenth that level
- Dr Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan says "This temporary increase in methane tells us there must be some relatively localized source. There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock"
- Curiosity’s findings do not reveal whether Mars has ever harbored living microbes, but they do shed light on a chemically active modern Mars and on suitable conditions for life in the past