So I’ll be frank with you: there is no methane on Mars. Absolutely none. Zip. Zilch. 1.3 parts per billion, by volume (2)… nothing.

This is what the Curiosity rover recently discovered and NASA reported in September, this year (1).

Well, guess that means we hang up the lab coats and put away our sterile wrenches and find a new hobby for all the NASA nerds.

Yeah, right.

LIke any good scientists, we will not give up the search without at least three confirmations: the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2016 and another Curiosity-type rover in 2020 will have to take a look, for themselves (2).

While we wait, here are some more reasons for us cosmic romantics to keep our hope in Martian life, well, alive:

1) Mars has a very low escape velocity so methane doesn’t stick around, too long. Just because there is no methane, now, doesn’t mean there wasn’t any before.

2) Underground pockets. If there is no methane in the atmosphere, perhaps it is in the underground pockets which we are hoping exist and which we are also hoping contain life. These pockets would allow for water in the liquid state, assuming the planet is still warm enough on the inside.

3) Pending…

So, it may not be so probable that life exists, or has existed on Mars, after all. Between the lack of atmosphere, frigid temperatures, and extremely varying axis, Mars may not be the most stable environment for the formation of life. Do not fret, though! We still have plenty of time (relatively) to think up some more questions before we attempt to send the first humans in 2023.

(1) http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/09/29/a-hardly-forbidden-planet/

(2) http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/curiosity-cant-kill-life-on-mars/article5182757.ece