MARTIAN MARVEL
Red Planet rover finds building blocks of life
NEW DISCOVERIES by NASA’s Curiosity rover could point to life on Mars. It’s not exactly aliens, but the agency on Thursday revealed the intrepid vehicle uncovered several complex organic molecules in an ancient lakebed “which could have come from life,” according to Jennifer Eignebrode, a biochemist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. While organic compounds are not inherently produced by living organisms, they are made up of carbon and other elements at the foundation of life on Earth. The Curiosity, which was designed “to assess whether Mars ever had an environment able to support small life forms,” first started digging into layers of rock and collecting data on the Red Planet in August 2012.
Scientists over the years have heated up the powder produced as a result of the drilling, forcing it to emit plumes of gas, Eigenbrode explained. The process allowed researchers to view an organic molecule broken down into tiny pieces and then restructure it in a bid to see the bigger picture surrounding the compound.
There are several explanations for the detection that are nonbiological. This type of compound has also been uncovered in meteorites in the past, according to NASA.
The discovery was published in the Journal of Science alongside a second article detailing the shifting levels of methane in the Martian atmosphere.
Christopher Webster, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also revealed Curiosity found methane levels on Mars varied from season to season — with a peak at the end of the summer season in the Red Planet’s northern hemisphere.
Webster and his co-authors concluded that “the amplitude of the season cycle indicates that there remain unknown atmospheric or surface processes” occurring on the planet.
Methane can also be produced by nonbiologic processes, though on earth it’s developed primarily by microorganisms.
“Both these discoveries are breakthroughs in astrobiology,” Inge Loes ten Kate, an astrobiologist at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, said in commentary published with the articles.
“The question of whether life might have originated on Mars is a lot more opportune now that we know that organic molecules were present on its surface at that time.”