Fossil samples may be evidence of life on Mars
Scientists point to photos of ‘millipedes’ and ‘sea spiders remains’ in rocks on the Red Planet
Is it a millipede or is it a rock? That is the question that is troubling some scientists who believe that life may already have been found on Mars, if you just look carefully enough.
It is a controversial topic, and one unlikely to be proven until humans set foot on the Red Planet, or Martian samples are returned to Earth.
Yet a small cadre of academics is convinced there is good evidence that life once existed on the planet, and may even still be thriving today.
The scientists believe they have spotted fossilised sponges, corals, worm eggs, algae, fungi, lichen, shrimp, crabs, sea spiders, scorpions, the tell-tale green glow of living cyanobacteria and, yes, even a translucent millipede, on the surface.
In the last month, a group of like-minded researchers have published four peer-reviewed papers in journals setting out their reasoning for believing proof of life is already there.
“We have photos of fungi growing out of the ground, increasing in size, increasing in number, as based on sequential images,” said Dr Rudolph
Schild of the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics, speaking on behalf of the researchers.
“Imagine, if you saw some of these specimens in your backyard, or growing in your bathtub, wouldn’t you spend a lot of time investigating, calling in experts, taking photos from every angle, trying to nudge it and see what happens?”
He added: “We have published photos of cyanobacteria growing.
“We have photos of an unusual specimen that may have been in a hole and two days later is outside the hole. Is that proof?
“Proof would require one of these organisms to walk up and lick the camera. Proof would require extraction and direct examination.”
The theories are largely based on images beamed back from Nasa’s
‘We have photos of an unusual specimen that may have been in a hole and two days later is outside the hole’
rovers which have been trundling over the surface for the past 26 years.
Many of the “fossils” were pictured inside the Gale Crater, a large impact basin near the equator, which was probably once a large lake.
Researchers say the putative fossils seen there closely resemble those found in the Burgess Shale, a 500 million-year-old fossil-rich layer in the Canadian Rockies. There also appears to be evidence of microbialites – rock-like underwater structures that look like reefs but are made of millions of microbes. One of the new papers, published in Applied Cell Biolog y, argues that semi-transparent cocoonlike eggs have been spotted, less than a millimetre in diameter with a single hole at one end, some of which appear to have “non-identifiable specimens” exiting and entering.
Fungal “puffballs” and specimens attached to rocks with stalks and topped with mushroom-like caps have also been observed in Meridiani Planum, a crater north of the equator. Another paper in the Journal of Astrophysics & Aerospace Technology argues that deposits in the Gale Crater resemble the Cambrian Explosion – a “bio-boom” period on Earth which gave rise to a period of rapid animal diversity, and which can be seen in the Burgess Shale.
All the authors of the papers are convinced that fossil evidence proved life once existed on Mars, although not all are in agreement that there are still multiple lifeforms thriving today.
Dr Vincenzo Rizzo, of the Department of Geology, at the National Research Council of Italy, believes talk of growing fungi or spiders is “hardly credible”.
“I believe that by now the presence of microbialitic structures and algal fossils should be considered established,” he said
“But about living organisms? I saw only rocks. Statements about spiders etc are based only on morphological aspects that are at odds with the biological evolution expected for Mars.
“Even on the supposed mushrooms – although compatible with the actual Martian environment, I have many doubts.
“This does not mean that current life does not exist. Some recent whitish spots and swellings recorded by the rovers may be fungal forms or lichens.”
The suspicion that life is present in Mars goes back to the 1950s when oxygen was detected in the planet’s atmosphere, leading scientists to believe that it had been produced by photosynthesis.
“Definitive proof would tell us we are not alone,” added Dr Schild. “We could assume that life has evolved on innumerable Earth-like planets.
“This then raises questions about the antiquity of life.”