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The Curiosity Rover has been hanging out in the Gale Crater on Mars for a while now, and during it's time there, it relayed the behavior of methane levels in the 96 mile-wide crater. The methane would rise significantly during the summer months, then plummet during the winter months. Scientists have now observed that something similar is happening with oxygen. And no-one has an explanation for it.
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This news comes from SAM, Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument that performs chemistry experiments on the Red Planet. SAM has been analyzing the atmosphere and samples of dirt from the Gale Crater since 2012, but the most recent study that came from SAM contained the shocking new information. Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the paper details SAM's atmospheric measurements from 2012 to 2017.
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The atmosphere inside the Gale Crater is 95% carbon dioxide, 2.6% molecular nitrogen, 1.9% argon, 0.16% molecular oxygen and 0.06% carbon monoxide. This information is not surprising - but what was surprising is that the oxygen levels didn't follow the same seasonal patterns as the other gases, rising higher than expected in summer and lower than expected in winter.
"The first time we saw that, it was just mind-boggling," one of the researchers said.
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The researchers tried to come up with explanations for this, first checking that SAM was accurate - which it was - then investigating multiple theories. However, none of the theories were possible with the current conditions on Mars. The fact that the fluctuations in oxygen differ every year rules out the possibility that it's an issue to do with atmospheric dynamics. The only clue that researchers have is that it might be due to a chemical source, but they remain largely clueless.
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The researchers made a point to emphasize that this mystery does not justify jumping to the conclusion that alien life exists on Mars, so don't get out your tin foil hats. It is most probably some kind of geological process that humans don't understand yet. But until we find out, I guess there's no harm in hoping that little green aliens are controlling Mars' oxygen levels from their flying saucers.
The Oxygen On Mars Is Behaving Very Strangely
It's old news that there's oxygen on Mars, albeit not a lot of it. But the Curiosity Rover just found out that the oxygen levels are not behaving normally by rising and falling - without any discernible cause. And scientists don't have a clue what's causing it.
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