NASA discovered methane gas, a sign of life on Mars

Mars is emitting a large amount of gas that could be a sign of the life of bacteria on the planet.

The Curiosity Mars probe of the US Aerospace Agency (NASA) has detected a large amount of methane gas in the atmosphere of the Red Planet.

NASA's Curiosity probe is on a mission to survey the surface of the Red planet - (Photo: AFP).

The New York Times on June 23 led sources to say that organisms living on Earth often release methane.

Curiosity operators have sent new instructions to the probe to further observe. Observation results will be available on June 24 (US time).

Methane, if it exists in Mars's thin atmosphere, will be of scientific significance because sunlight and chemical reactions will break down these gas molecules within a few centuries. So if Curiosity finds methane on Mars, that means that the gas has only recently been emitted.

At Earth, bacteria called methanogens live in anaerobic places and they release methane as a waste.

However, geothermal reactions that are not related to organisms can also produce methane. Or it could be methane from ancient times, trapped inside Mars's heart for millions of years and just escaping to the surface through newly emerging cracks.

NASA informed about methane detection but said it was only "an initial research result". "To maintain academic integrity, the team working on this project will continue to analyze the data before confirming the final result," a NASA spokesman said .

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