Curiosity Reveals Mars' Atmosphere Is Vanishing, But May Have
Supported Life  on July 18 2013 10:02 PM Mars Rover Curiosity's
wheel tracks  A new report from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity
gives excellent support to the theory that the Red Planet may
have once supported life. A pair of new NASA studies suggests
that billions of years ago, Mars contained noticeable amounts of
methane in the atmosphere. Because 99 percent of methane on
Earth is produced by living creatures, researchers believe that
Mars may have once hosted microscopic life, at least.  According
to Wired, researchers have long suspected methane on Mars, which
would point to the possibility of microbial life. Unfortunately
for those theories, Mars’ atmosphere has rapidly deteriorated,
and there is no longer significant methane to be found. At Gale
Crater, where Curiosity landed last year, methane only composes
2.7 parts per billion of Mars’ atmosphere, compared to 1,700 ppb
of methane on Earth. This means that there’s little chance for
microbial li