Is there life on Mars? Dorset pools could well provide the answer

THE serene shores of Lulworth Cove in Dorset may not seem the obvious place to hunt for alien life.

However, scientists at Imperial College London have discovered that the highly acidic sulphur streams and pools that surround St Oswald’s Bay perfectly mimic conditions on Mars billions of years ago. And the hardy organisms that live there could give a hint about the kind of life that may have evolved on the Red Planet.

Crucially, researchers found traces of fatty acids, the key building blocks of biological cells, in the streams as well as living and fossilised microbes in the nearby rock deposits. When they applied their findings to the Martian environment, they concluded there could be the equivalent of nearly 12,000 Olympic-sized pools of organic matter on Mars that might signal past life.

Prof Mark Sephton, the study’s coauthor and the head of Imperial’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering, said: “Mars harboured water billions of years ago, meaning some form of life might have thrived there.

“If life existed before the water dried up, it would probably have left remains that are preserved to this day in Martian rock.

“However, we have yet to find convincing traces of organic matter that would indicate previous life on the Red Planet.”

Mars is thought to be one of the best hopes of finding evidence of extraterrestrial life in the Solar System because it once had an atmosphere and liquid water. There have been hints that life may have existed there, but no proof. In 2014 Nasa’s Curiosity rover recorded intriguing “burps” of methane. On Earth, around 90 per cent of methane is produced by living organisms, so the expectation was that some kind of life form was also emitting the gas on Mars.

Jonathan Tan, the study’s co-author, said: “St Oswald’s Bay is a present-day microcosm of middle-aged Mars.”