Curiosity Rover Finds No Methane On Mars. What’s Happening?

Curiosity Rover Finds No Methane On Mars. What’s Happening?

Mars Express data supposedly shows methane peaking in the Martian atmosphere at 25-40 kilometers.

If Earth's atmosphere would have impacted observations from Earth, there's the problem that these observations from Earth a)show great differences from season to season and year to year and b)seem to show concentrations of methane on same places as Mars Express.

An error resulting from Earth's atmosphere should be relatively stable over time and an error that would lead to identification of methane with same places as those on Mars Express data would, at best, raise questions about the scientific credibility of the team making the observations on Earth - seeing what they want to see a la Percival Lowell - and at worst would hint at deliberate tampering of data.

Curiosity is a magnificent scientific instrument, a discovery machine, but as several different teams using probes and Earth-based observatories report observing methane at relatively high levels on Mars, I would not be ready to declare that Curiosity's data is the correct one.

By 2017, if everything goes correctly, there should be two new probes on Martian orbit with capability to observe methane far better on Martian global scale than so far. They should be able to say the last word.