After a year roaming the surface of Mars, Nasa has failed to find any evidence that its atmosphere is supporting life, it was revealed today. The Curiosity rover currently scanning the Red Planet has not detected any methane, a gas that is produced by living things. Since landing in Gale Crater last year, every morning and evening the car-size probe has analysed Mars' air and scanned it with a tiny laser in search of the greenhouse gas. Scroll down for video. Disappointment: The Curiosity rover has scanned Mars for methane every day but has not found any, which probably means it does not support life. Not finding it means that it is unlikely that microbes. capable of producing the gas are living below the planet's surface,. scientists said today. NASA had high hopes that the rover would inhale methane after. orbiting spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes detected plumes of the. gas several years ago. On Earth, most of the gas is a by-product of. life, spewed when animals digest or plants decay. 'If you had microbial life somewhere on Mars that was really healthy and. cranking away, you might see some of the signatures of that in the. atmosphere,' said mission scientist Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space. Flight Center. During Curiosity's first eight months on the red planet, it probed. the air during the day and at night as the season changed from spring to. summer. Journey: Curiosity has traveled around one mile in the past year. This map shows where the rover has been between landing at 'Bradbury Landing' on August 6 last year and August 1. 'Every time we looked, we never saw it,' said Christopher. Webster, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who led the research. published online in the journal Science. Webster said while the. result was 'disappointing in many ways,' the hunt for the elusive gas. continues. While methane is linked to living things, it can also be made. by non-biological processes. Mars today is a hostile place -. extremely dry and constantly bombarded by radiation. Billions of years. ago, the planet boasted a thicker atmosphere and possible lakes. Scientists generally agree that nothing can exist on the Martian surface. at present since it's too toxic. If there are living things on Mars,. scientists theorize they're likely underground. Just because. Curiosity didn't detect methane near its landing site doesn't mean the. gas is not present elsewhere on the planet, said Bill Nye, chief. executive of the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group. At work: Curiosity spends its time analysing all elements of Mars using a series of lasers and probes - but some results have been disappointing fo scientists on Earth. 'Suppose. you're an alien coming to Earth and you landed in the Four Corners. area, would you feel as if you've explored the Earth?' he said. Several. years ago, scientists became excited at the prospect of. methane-producing microbes after Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space. Flight Center noticed a mysterious belch of methane from three regions. in Mars' western hemisphere. Mumma, who had no role in the latest study, said he stood by his observations. Earlier. this month, Curiosity reached its first rest stop in its long trek. toward Mount Sharp, a mountain rising from Gale Crater near the equator. The rover will take monthly readings of the Martian atmosphere during. the road trip, expected to last almost a year. Curiosity previously. found evidence of an ancient environment that could have once been. suitable for microscopic life. While the latest finding diminishes hope. for present-day life, scientists still hope to uncover signs of ancient. life by looking for organic compounds at the base of Mount Sharp.

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Curiosity rover has found no sign of methane, which is produced by life. Robot has spent a year on Red Planet scanning its surface and atmosphere. 'If you had life somewhere on Mars, you might see some', NASA says.

By. Sarah Griffiths. PUBLISHED:. 08:28 EST, 8 July 2013. |. UPDATED:. 08:30 EST, 8 July 2013. For those who live in fear of our eight-legged friends, it's the stuff of nightmares. Engineers in Hong Kong have made a robotic spider that accurately replicates the creepy leg movements of real arachnids. The Robugtix T8 robot contains 26 little motors under its 3D printed case to make the spider move in a way that will certainly scare those terrified of the creatures. Scroll down for video... The Robugtix T8 robot contains 26 little motors under its 3D printed case - three in each leg and two in its abdomen - to make the spider move in a realistic way. Each of the robo-tarantula's legs houses. three motors, with two more used to animate the creature's abdomen,. allowing it to strike scary poses. The 3D printed spiderbot is powered by a microcontroller that runs a movement engine called Bigfoot Inverse Kinematics. The means that the master of the octopod does not have to send the robot intricate instructions. Using a wireless controller, an. individual can select a gait and tell the spider in which direction to. travel, making it ideal for stealth attacks and pranks. The engine handles all the complex mathematical theory and calculations required to control a multi-legged walking robot, leaving the operator free to focus on what it actually wants the spider to do. For example, a user can tell the spider to walk forward at a certain speed, while the engine takes care of detail such as inverse kinematics, leg trajectory planning and motor control. The company selling the robot says: 'This makes it quite easy even for absolute beginners to. play with advanced robotics.' The 3D printed spiderbot is powered by a microcontroller that runs a movement engine called Bigfoot Inverse Kinematics. It handles all the complex maths needed to control a multi-legged walking robot so the user only has to issue simple instructions. Unlike the T8 robot, real tarantulas (pictured) come in over 900 varieties and it is thought that they produce small quantities of silk from their feet, enabling them to cling to smooth surfaces. Owners of the scary toy may want to refrain from shocking a friend with arachnophobia and a good aim though, as the robotic mini beast costs over £900. The robot is the brainchild of a research, engineering and design company called Amoeba Robotics in Hong Kong, which specialises in making innovative robotics systems. It is on sale from the Robugtix website that creates bio-inspired multi-legged robots and is expected to ship in September. Luckily, for those who want more terror for their money there is a slightly less-realistic six-legged robot available for just over £160. The IITSII is a hexapod version of the T8 that contains 18 motors instead of 26, so there are still three in each leg. As there are no motors in the insect critter's body, it can't pose like it's spider peer, but still uses the same engine to move around in a realistic way. Both scary products come as kits and need to be built. The Controllers cost extra but there is scope for technophiles to create their own communication methods with the robots as they are open devices. Users of spider bot can choose between pre-programming their own sequences or directly controlling the robot in real time with. the wireless Robugtix Controller.

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The Robugtix T8 robo-tarantula has 26 motors under a 3D-printed shell to move in a super realistic way. Engineers in Hong Kong created the £900 octopod, which includes a clever engine to do the complex maths required to make the mini monster move. A smaller, cheaper six-legged robot is also available for techie prangsters.