
A Mystery of Missing Methane - wglb
http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/3472/a-mystery-of-missing-methane
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hga
No cows, no French Toast, no methane, only oatmeal and carbon monoxide; an
amusing article:

" _“In this case, we expected to find methane not because of the presence of
life, but because of the planet’s chemistry. This type of planet should have
cooked up methane. It’s like dipping bread into beaten eggs, frying it, and
getting oatmeal in the end,” said Joseph Harrington of the University of
Central Florida, the principal investigator of the research.

Methane is present on our life-bearing planet, manufactured primarily by
microbes living in cows and soaking in waterlogged rice fields. All of the
giant planets in our solar system have methane too, despite their lack of
cows._"

What they expected for a planet of this type and at its temperature was a lot
of methane and a little carbon monoxide, but they see the reverse.

Hmmm.

