Scientists are often fooled when they find ‘fossils’ on Mars
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — There’s no easy way to find evidence of past life on Mars. Many obstacles faced. Even if there is a sliver of evidence of life, it really must be investigated whether it is from a biological process, not from a chemical process or something else.
The American Space Agency (NASA) has landed a rover on Mars namely Perseverance. However, missions to search for remnants of the past on Mars are not always smooth.
There are structures that look like fossils, but they are not. Many natural chemical processes produce structures that mimic biological forms. How can you tell the difference?
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–Scientists know of dozens of natural processes that can create structures that appear organic. There are probably many that haven’t been discovered yet. Some microscopic structures ‘trick’ scientists before.
In a new article, a pair of researchers outline some of the problems with fake fossils in the search for genuine microscopic fossils on Mars. This article is entitled Fakes Biosignatures on Mars: Amticipating Ambiguity.
This article was published in Journal of the Geological Society. No article on the false indications of life on Mars would be complete without mentioning the Alan Hills meteorite 84001 which was discovered in Antarctica in 1984.
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