Credit: SciTechDaily.comSimulations will help Curiosity search for indications of present or previous life on the Red Planet.New research study reveals that atmospheric pressure fluctuations that pull gases up from underground might be accountable for launching subsurface methane into Mars environment; knowing when and where to look for methane can assist the Curiosity rover search for indications of life. With the source of methane on Mars likely being underground, short-term variations in atmospheric methane levels have actually presented a research study challenge.To better comprehend Mars methane levels, Ortiz and his team used high-performance computing clusters to imitate how methane takes a trip through networks of underground fractures and is released into the environment, where it then mixes within the climatic column. They also designed how methane is adsorbed onto the pores of rocks, which is a temperature-dependent procedure that may contribute to the methane level fluctuations.Their simulations forecasted methane pulses from the ground surface into the atmosphere simply before the Martian sunrise in the worlds northern summer season, which just recently ended.