Journal articles

No detection of methane on Mars from early ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter observations

Oleg Korablev ¹ Ann Carine Vandaele ² Franck Montmessin ³ Anna A. Fedorova ¹ Alexander Trokhimovskiy ¹ François Forget ⁴ Franck Lefèvre ³ Frank Daerden ² Ian R. Thomas ² Loic Trompet ² Justin T. Erwin ² Shohei Aoki ² Séverine Robert ² Lori Neary ² Sébastien Viscardy ² Alexey V. Grigoriev ¹ Nikolay I. Ignatiev ¹ Alexey Shakun ¹ Andrey Patrakeev ¹ Denis A. Belyaev ¹ Jean-Loup Bertaux ^{3, 1} Kevin S. Olsen ³ Lucio Baggio ³ Juan Alday ⁵ yuriy S. Ivanov ⁶ Bojan Ristic ² Jon Mason ⁷ yannick Willame ² Cédric Depiesse ² Laszlo Hetey ² Sophie Berkenbosch ² Roland Clairquin ² Claudio Queirolo ² Bram Beeckman ² Eddy Neefs ² Manish R. Patel ⁷ Giancarlo Bellucci ⁸ José-Juan López-Moreno ⁹ Colin F. Wilson ⁵ Giuseppe Etiope ^{10, 8, 11} Lev Zelenyi ¹ Håkan Svedhem ¹² Jorge L. Vago ¹² Gustavo Alonso-Rodrigo ¹³ Francesca Altieri ⁸ Konstantin Anufreychik ¹ Gabriele E. Arnold ¹⁴ Sophie Bauduin ¹⁵ David Bolsée ² Giacomo Carrozzo ⁸ R. Todd Clancy ¹⁶ Edward A. Cloutis ¹⁷ Matteo Crismani ¹⁸ Fabiana da Pieve ² Emiliano d'Aversa ⁸ Natalia Duxbury ¹⁹ Thérèse Encrenaz ²⁰ Thierry Fouchet ²⁰ Bernd Funke ⁹ Didier Fussen ² Maia Garcia-Comas ⁹ Jean-Claude Gérard ²¹ Marco Giuranna ⁸ Leo Gkouvelis ²¹ Francisco Gonzalez-Galindo ⁹ Davide Grassi ⁸ Sandrine Guerlet ⁴ Paul Hartogh ²² James A. Holmes ⁷ Benoît Hubert ²¹ Jacek W. Kaminski ²³ Özgür Karatekin ²⁴ yasumasa Kasaba ²⁵ David Kass ²⁶ Igor Khatuntsev ¹ Armin Kleinböhl ²⁶ Nikita Kokonkov ¹ Vladimir Krasnopolsky ²⁷ Ruslan Kuzmin ¹ Gaetan Lacombe ³ Orietta Lanciano ²⁸ Emmanuel Lellouch ²⁰ Stephen Lewis ⁷ Mikhail Luginin ¹ Giuliano Liuzzi ¹⁸ Manuel López-Puertas ⁹ Miguel Lopez-Valverde ⁹ Anni Määttänen ³ Arnaud Mahieux ² Emmanuel Marcq ³ Javier Martin-Torres ²⁹ Igor Maslov ¹ Alexander Medvedev ²² Ehouarn Millour ⁴ Boris Moshkin ¹ Michael J. Mumma ¹⁸ Hiromu Nakagawa ²⁵ Robert E. Novak ¹⁸ Fabrizio Oliva ⁸ Dmitry Patsaev ¹ Arianna Piccialli ² Cathy Quantin-Nataf ³⁰ Etienne Renotte ³¹ Birgit Ritter ²¹ Alexander Rodin ³² Frédéric Schmidt ³³ Nick Schneider ³⁴ Valery Shematovich ³⁵ Michael D. Smith ¹⁸ Nicholas A. Teanby ³⁶ Ed Thiemann ³⁴ Nicolas Thomas ³⁷ Jean Vander Auwera ³⁸ Luis Vázquez ³⁹ Geronimo Villanueva ¹⁸ Matthieu Vincendon ⁴⁰ James Whiteway ⁴¹ Valérie Wilquet ² Michael J. Wolff ¹⁶ Paulina Wolkenberg ⁸ Roger yelle ⁴² Roland young ⁴ Ludmila Zasova ¹ Maria Paz Zorzano ⁴³

1 IKI - Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

2 BIRA-IASB - Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy / Institut d'Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique

3 PLANETO - LATMOS

LATMOS - Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales

4 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)

5 Department of Physics [Oxford]

6 MAO - Main Astronomical Observatory of NAS of Ukraine

7 School of Physical Sciences [Milton Keynes]

8 IAPS - Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali - INAF

9 IAA - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía

10 INGV - Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia - Sezione di Roma

11 Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering [Cluj-Napoca]

12 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre

13 IDR - Instituto Universitario de Microgravedad "Ignacio Da Riva"

14 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung

15 Spectroscopie de l'atmosphère, Service de Chimie Quantique et Photophysique

16 SSI - Space Science Institute [Boulder]

17 Department of Geography [Winnipeg]

18 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

19 MSU - Lomonosov Moscow State University

20 LESIA (UMR_8109) - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique

21 LPAP - Laboratoire de Physique Atmosphérique et Planétaire

22 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung

23 Institute of Geophysics [Warsaw]

24 ROB - Royal Observatory of Belgium [Brussels]

25 Graduate School of Information Sciences [Sendai]

26 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

27 Institute for Astrophysics and Computational Sciences [Washington]

28 ASI - Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

29 Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering [Luleå]

30 LGL-TPE - Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon - Terre, Planètes, Environnement [Lyon]

31 AMOS - Advanced Mechanical and Optical Systems SA

32 MIPT - Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology [Moscow]

33 GEOPS - Géosciences Paris Sud

34 LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics [Boulder]

35 INASAN - Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences

36 School of Earth Sciences [Bristol]

37 University of Bern

38 ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles

39 UCM - Universidad Complutense de Madrid = Complutense University of Madrid [Madrid]

40 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale

41 CRESS - Centre for Research in Earth and Space Science [Toronto]

42 LPL - Lunar and Planetary Laboratory [Tucson]

43 LUT - Luleå University of Technology

Abstract : The detection of methane on Mars has been interpreted as indicating that geochemical or biotic activities could persist on Mars today1. A number of different measurements of methane show evidence of transient, locally elevated methane concentrations and seasonal variations in background methane concentrations2,3,4,5. These measurements, however, are difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the chemistry and physics of the Martian atmosphere6,7, which—given methane’s lifetime of several centuries—predicts an even, well mixed distribution of methane1,6,8. Here we report highly sensitive measurements of the atmosphere of Mars in an attempt to detect methane, using the ACS and NOMAD instruments onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter from April to August 2018. We did not detect any methane over a range of latitudes in both hemispheres, obtaining an upper limit for methane of about 0.05 parts per billion by volume, which is 10 to 100 times lower than previously reported positive detections2,4. We suggest that reconciliation between the present findings and the background methane concentrations found in the Gale crater4 would require an unknown process that can rapidly remove or sequester methane from the lower atmosphere before it spreads globally.

Document type :

Journal articles

Domain :

Sciences of the Universe [physics] / Astrophysics [astro-ph]

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https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-02099757
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Submitted on : Wednesday, November 18, 2020 - 8:24:52 PM
Last modification on : Saturday, June 25, 2022 - 10:50:46 PM
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