The carbon cycle could be a sign that life may have existed on Mars.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PENNSYLVANIA — Rover Mars belonging to the American Space Agency (NASA) Curiosity, may have discovered the building blocks of life on Mars. Known, This rover has been exploring Mars to investigate Mars’ past.
Research has found that the rock collected by the rover contains organic carbon that may have come from insects that once roamed Mars.
Analysis of sediments from half a dozen sites, including exposed cliffs, identified ancient carbon cycles. The samples were thought to have a ‘biological basis’, resembling the 2.7 billion-year-old fossilized remains of microbial life in Australia.
Carbon has two stable isotopes, 12 and 13. Their presence gives us information about their origin.
“Samples that are heavily depleted in carbon 13 are a bit like samples from Australia taken from sediments that are 2.7 billion years old,” said Professor Christopher House, lead author of the study from Penn State University in the United States. Metro, Wednesday (19/1/2022).
“The samples were due to biological activity when methane was consumed by ancient microbial mats. But we can’t say it’s on Mars because it’s a planet that probably formed from different materials and processes from Earth.”
On Earth, it suggests past microbes consumed biologically produced methane. Methane, the simplest organic molecule known to exist in the Martian atmosphere.
Ancient Mars may have had large clumps of methane released from beneath the surface where production would have been energy-beneficial. Then, the methane released will be consumed by microbes or react with ultraviolet light and deposited directly on the surface.
Curiosity has explored Gale Crater for more than nine years. The rover drills below the surface and sends the results back to Earth.
Gale Crater is believed to have been a deep lake 3.5 billion years old, containing complex organic molecules that are the main raw materials for life as we know it.
– .
