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my name is michael mumma i work at

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goddard space flight center for the

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national aeronautics and space

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administration in greenbelt maryland

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our team has discovered methane on mars

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the surprising thing about methane on

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mars is that

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first that we detect it meaning it's

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recently generated but in addition we

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find that it's being released from

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several discrete vents

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or sites on the planet's surface in

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either mid-summer in the northern

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hemisphere or early spring in the

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southern hemisphere on mars

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and yet at a later season

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we see essentially no methane

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the big question is uh what is the

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origin of this methane

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now being released

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the two principal areas are first

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by analogy with the earth it could be

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released and produced initially

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primarily by biology this would be

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microbial activity

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acting on certain chemicals below the

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surface

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and then producing methane as a

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byproduct

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but of course we can't state with

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certitude that it is

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biologically produced

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and so we also consider geochemical

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mechanisms

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in which

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carbon dioxide is actually combining

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with water

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and producing methane under very high

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temperatures and pressures

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and that methane can then be released in

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the atmosphere separately

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one of the most important

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consequences of our discoveries

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is that

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we've identified certain signposts on

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mars that basically are like little

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flags that say come here here i am

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nasa has several missions along these

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lines

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one is called the mars science

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laboratory one of the key objectives is

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to understand whether life ever arose on

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mars by

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sampling the material on the surface and

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then evaluating that in terms of its

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origins you could then can appreciate

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that if you go to this right location

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you may in fact be able to identify