Oxygen, a gas important to life on Earth, has a different agenda on the Red Planet, according to data from NASA’s Curiosity rover.
For the first time, scientists measured the seasonal changes in gases present in the air directly above the Gale Crater’s surface on Mars. While researching the Martian spot, they noticed that oxygen was behaving in a way that couldn’t be explained through any known chemical processes, according to NASA.
Over 6 years, a chemistry lab inside the belly of @MarsCuriosity has inhaled Martian air & analyzed its composition. Scientists found that the nitrogen & argon follow a predictable seasonal pattern — but not oxygen. Learn about the newest Martian mystery: https://t.co/Pf3kdsgC8E pic.twitter.com/yy43UdeuSY
— NASA (@NASA) November 12, 2019
For three Mars years (almost six Earth years), an instrument in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) portable chemistry lab, which is located inside Curiosity’s belly, inhaled the Gale Crater air and studied its composition. SAM’s results showed the following makeup of the Martian atmosphere at the surface: 95 percent by volume of carbon dioxide, 2.6% molecular nitrogen, 1.9% argon, 0.16% molecular oxygen, and 0.06% carbon monoxide. They also demonstrated that Martian air molecules mix and circulate with the changes in air pressure throughout the year.
Photo Credit: Melissa Trainer / Dan Gallagher / NASA Goddard
Here’s where it gets tricky: In a recent study, Scientists discovered that argon and nitrogen follow a predictable seasonal pattern, which was relative to how much carbon dioxide is in the air. Oxygen was expected to act the same, however, the gas didn’t—instead, the amount of oxygen in the air increased in spring and summer by as much as 30 percent and decreased back to predicted levels in fall. This bizarre pattern kept repeating, showing that something unexplainable was producing oxygen and then removing it from the Martian atmosphere.
Strange things are afoot in Gale Crater
I see seasonal rise and fall of oxygen greater than predicted—similar to what I’ve seen with methane. There can be bio and non-bio sources, so it doesn’t necessarily mean life on #Mars, but wow. Worth more study. https://t.co/62xMn23ntt pic.twitter.com/3LyYAFGiZ1
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) November 12, 2019
“We’re struggling to explain this. The fact that the oxygen behavior isn’t perfectly repeatable every season makes us think that it’s not an issue that has to do with atmospheric dynamics,” said Melissa Trainer, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who led this research. “It has to be some chemical source and sink that we can’t yet account for.”
Photo Credit: Melissa Trainer / Dan Gallagher / NASA Goddard
After checking the SAM instrument and looking into other factors, such as water molecules and solar radiation, the team then started to question if the behavior of oxygen and methane on the Red Planet was correlated. According to the team, occasionally the two gases seem to fluctuate together.
Like oxygen, methane also spikes randomly and scientists still don’t know why that’s the case. According to measurements from SAM’s Tunable Laser Spectrometer, methane rises and falls seasonally and increases by roughly 60 percent during the summer months for reasons scientists can’t determine yet.
“We’re beginning to see this tantalizing correlation between methane and oxygen for a good part of the Mars year,” said Sushil Atreya, the study’s co-author. “I think there’s something to it. I just don’t have the answers yet. Nobody does.”
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