Newly discovered, unusual carbon on Mars could indicate life

© NASA/Caltech-JPL/MSSS

18.01.2022

NASA’s Curiosity rover has taken soil samples on Mars that may indicate life forms.

For almost nine and a half years, the NASA rover Curiosity landed on the Red Planet , where he has since explored an area of ​​Gale Crater where ancient rock strata have been exposed.

In samples from buried sediment, a Carbon isotope found at taken from half a dozen exposed sites. According to the researchers 3 plausible explanations

No evidence for biological origin

Further analysis must be performed in order determine the actual origin. As if from a broadcast by the research team around Christopher House from Pennsylvania State University, spectrographic analysis indicated a wide range Carbon 12 and Carbon 13 moieties. A portion was exceptionally poor in carbon 13 while other carbon samples were enriched.

On Earth, a severely carbon 13-depleted signature would of a paleosurface indicate that microbes have historically consumed microbially produced methane. Ancient Mars may have had large plumes of methane released from underground. This released methane was then either consumed by microbes on the surface or reacted with ultraviolet light and deposited directly on the surface.

“The Extremely depleted samples of carbon 13 are somewhat similar to samples from Australia, which come from 2.7 billion year old sediments,” House said. “These samples were caused by biological activity as methane was consumed by ancient microbial layers, but we can’t necessarily on Mars because it is a planet that may have formed from different materials and processes than Earth .” Thus, the evidence is not proof of life on the Red Planet.

Cosmic Dust

According to House, the solar system traverses every few 100 million years a galactic molecular cloud. “It doesn’t deposit a lot of dust,” House says u see.”

To form a layer for Curiosity to sample, the galactic dust cloud would initially have the temperature of a Mars had to sink, which still contained water and produced glaciers. The dust would have deposited on the ice and would have to remain in place after the glacier melted to leave a layer of dirt containing the carbon.

So far there are only few hints on former glaciers in Gale Crater on Mars. According to the researchers, this explanation is plausible but requires further investigation.

Converted CO2

Another possible explanation for lower levels of carbon 13 is the ultraviolet conversion of carbon dioxide into organic compounds such as formaldehyde. “There is work that predicts that UV radiation could cause this type of fractionation,” House said. However, further experiments are needed to assume or rule out this process.

“All three possibilities point to a unusual carbon cycle in a way that doesn’t exist on Earth today,” says House. “But we need more data to figure out which of these is the correct explanation. It would be nice if the rover could detect a large methane plume and measure the carbon isotopes from it.” Methane plumes do exist, but most are small, and no rover was able to take a sample large enough to measure the isotopes.

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