Gigatons of greenhouse gas are trapped under the seafloor, and that’s a good thing. Around the coasts of the continents, where slopes sink down into the sea, tiny cages of […]
Methane
Posted inAstrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release
Methane Formation Before The Emergence Of Life
A team at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg has found that iron and reactive oxygen species drive the formation of methane in aqueous environments. In Earth’s […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report
Methane Throughout The Atmosphere Of The Warm Exoplanet WASP-80b
The abundances of major carbon and oxygen bearing gases in the atmospheres of giant exoplanets provide insights into atmospheric chemistry and planet formation processes.
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
Sahara Dust Can Enhance Removal Of Methane
The study by Maarten van Herpen et al., entitled “Photocatalytic Chlorine Atom Production on Mineral Dust-Sea Spray Aerosols over North Atlantic,” was funded in part by the NGO Spark Climate […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Mars, Press Release
URI Professors Win NASA-EPSCoR Grant To Study Methane Emissions From Rocks Common To Earth, Mars
Image: From left, Soni Pradhanang and Dawn Cardace, associate professors of geosciences, and Serena Moseman-Valtierra, an associate professor of biological sciences. Over the next three years, three University of Rhode […]
Posted inBiogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Press Release
Mars Express Matches Methane Spike Measured by Curiosity
A reanalysis of data collected by ESA’s Mars Express during the first 20 months of NASA’s Curiosity mission found one case of correlated methane detection, the first time an in-situ […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Press Release
How did Early Earth Stay Warm?
For at least a billion years of the distant past, planet Earth should have been frozen over but wasn’t. Scientists thought they knew why, but a new modeling study from […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Mars, Press Release
Hypotheses for Near-surface Exchange of Methane on Mars
The Curiosity rover recently detected a background of 0.7 ppb and spikes of 7 ppb of methane on Mars. This in situ measurement reorients our understanding of the Martian environment […]
Posted inMars
Team Finds New Hope for Life in Martian Crust
An international research team, including scientists at Western University, has found methane – a plausible energy source for sustaining life – deep within the crust or subsurface of Mars. The […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Extinction events
Did A Methane Burst Cause the end-Permian Extinction?
The end-Permian extinction is associated with a mysterious disruption to Earth’s carbon cycle. Here we identify causal mechanisms via three observations. First, we show that geochemical signals indicate superexponential growth […]