Context
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected an unusually high concentration of methane, along with carbon dioxide and dihydrogen, in the moons of Saturn by flying through their plumes.
About the Key findings
- The spacecraft has found that Titan has methane in its atmosphere and Enceladus has a liquid ocean with erupting plumes of gas and water.
- An international research team has used new statistical methods to understand if methanogenesis or methane production by microbes could explain the molecular hydrogen and methane.
- The models combined geochemistry and microbial ecology to decode what possible processes could explain these observations.
Are there methane-producing organisms on Earth?
- Most of the methane on Earth has a biological origin.
- Microorganisms called methanogens are capable of generating methane as a metabolic byproduct.
- They do not require oxygen to live and are widely distributed in nature.
- They are found in swamps, dead organic matter, and even in the human gut.
- They are known to survive in high temperatures and simulation studies have shown that they can live in Martian conditions.
- Methanogens have been widely studied to understand if they can be a contributor to global warming.
