NASA’s Curiosity Research captured this selfie in late 2020.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M
This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.
When the words “interesting”, “Mars”, and “ancient life” appear in the same NASA statement, my ears explode. on Sunday, NASA talks about new study Consider the ‘unusual carbon signal’ measured by the Curiosity rover in the Red Planet’s Gale Crater.
Curiosity has yet to find evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars, but scientists are not ruling it out as one possible explanation for the probe’s findings. The crushed rock samples studied by the probe show the type of carbon footprint associated with biological life on Earth. But perhaps Mars tells a very different story.
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Carbon is an essential component of life on our planet, so it’s important to study how it emerged on Mars. “For example, organisms on Earth use the smaller, lighter carbon 12 atoms to metabolize food or photosynthesis versus the heavier carbon 13,” NASA said. “Thus, the much higher amount of carbon 12 than carbon 13 in ancient rocks, along with other evidence, shows scientists that they are seeing chemical fingerprints associated with life.”
NASA’s Curiosity rover has drilled a hole in Gale Crater on Mars. Scientists have found interesting carbon fingerprints in some of the samples studied by the rover.
NASA/Caltech-JPL/MSSS
Curiosity heats rock samples in a laboratory on board and uses them spectrometer laser merdu An instrument for measuring the gas emitted from the sample. Some rock samples contain “significantly large amounts of carbon-12” compared to what is found in the Martian atmosphere and Martian meteorites.
The idea of these clouds stems from an event when the Solar System passed through a galactic dust cloud hundreds of millions of years ago, which would have left carbon-rich deposits on Mars. A second idea suggests that ultraviolet light could interact with carbon dioxide gas in the Martian atmosphere leaving molecules with distinctive carbon signatures on the surface.
The idea of a biological origin could involve bacteria releasing methane into the atmosphere which is then converted into molecules that settle on Mars, leaving behind the carbon footprints Curiosity discovered.
Mars and Earth have lived very different lives, so scientists are careful not to apply Earth forecasts to Mars data. “All three possibilities suggest an unusual carbon cycle unlike anything on Earth today.” kata ahli geologi Penn State, Christopher Houseleading the research. “But we need more data to know which interpretation is correct.”
Curiosity has been on Mars since 2012 and continues to examine rock and sediment as it moves around its crater. His studies of carbon isotopes may not yet answer the question of whether the Red Planet ever harbored life, but investigations are ongoing.
