Tim researcher of the Institut de Biologie de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure (IBENS) Paris, France, discovered the cause of the extinction of life in Mars.
A new climate modeling study suggests ancient microbes are fueling climate change on Mars that is making the planet less habitable. Eventually, it led to extinction.
According to the study, simple microbes ate hydrogen and released methane so they could multiply on Mars about 3.7 billion years ago.
That time was almost the same as primitive life in the primeval oceans of the Earth. However, the gradual emergence of life on Earth has created an environment conducive to more complex life forms.
IBENS astrobiologist Boris Sauterey conducted a computer modeling study that simulated the interactions of what we know about Mars’ primeval atmosphere and lithosphere with hydrogen-eating microbes similar to those on ancient Earth.
Researchers found that methane produced by microbes on Earth gradually warms the planet, while on Mars it produces cold.
So the heat from methane pushes the microbes into the deeper and deeper layers of the planet’s crust to survive.
“At that time, Mars will be relatively humid and relatively warm, between minus 10 degrees and 20 degrees Celsius,” Sauterey said. Space.
“So there is liquid in the form of rivers, lakes and possibly oceans on the surface. However, the atmosphere is very different from Earth’s; denser, but richer in carbon dioxide and hydrogen, both of which act as powerful heating gases.” , He continued.
Because it is farther from the Sun than Earth and naturally colder, Mars needs greenhouse gases to maintain comfortable temperatures for life.
When those first microbes began to devour hydrogen and produce methane, they actually slowed warming through the greenhouse effect, thus gradually turning ancient Mars so cold that it was inhospitable.
As the planet cools, more water turns into ice and surface temperatures drop below -60 degrees Celsius, pushing microbes deeper into the crust where warmer conditions persist.
Although the microbes may have initially lived beneath the sandy surface of Mars, within a few hundred million years they were forced to retreat to a depth of 1 kilometer.
Sauterey and his team identified three places where traces of ancient microbes would most likely remain closer to the surface.
These locations include Jezero Crater, where NASA’s Perseverance rover is looking for rock samples to investigate traces of ancient life on Mars.
“The places on the planet where the microbes are closest to the surface will be the hottest,” Sautery said.
“And the hottest places are usually the deepest places. At the bottom of these craters and valleys, the climate is much warmer than the rest of the surface which is why it would be easier to look there for evidence of this life form. “.
Next, the researchers wanted to find out if these ancient microbes could still live anywhere in the Martian crust.
Satellites have previously detected traces of methane in Mars’ thin atmosphere, but it is currently unclear whether this methane is of natural origin.
The findings, Sauterey said, suggest that life may not have the inherent qualities of self-sufficiency that some biologists believe occurred on Earth.
Life could indeed appear randomly in the universe, only to die out through one’s interaction with the world.
“The ingredients of life are everywhere in the universe. So it is possible for life to appear regularly in the universe. But life’s inability to maintain habitable conditions on the planet’s surface has made it extinct very quickly,” said Sauterey quoted by Nature.
(can / lth)
