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Space
Space
Science
Stefanie Waldek

Mars' subsurface is 'burping' out methane and scientists aren't sure why

Mars NASA Red Planet
Image of a large whitish rover on the surface of mars, surrounded by rocks and red dirt.

Since 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover has repeatedly detected methane on Mars, specifically near its landing site inside the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater. 

But that Mars methane is behaving erratically. It only appears at night, it fluctuates seasonally and it spikes unexpectedly to levels 40 times higher than usual. To make things more puzzling, the gas isn't present in appreciable amounts high in the Martian atmosphere, and it hasn't been detected near the surface in other Red Planet locales. So what's going on at Gale Crater?

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