An international team of astrobiologists has suggested that organic compounds found by the rover Curiositymay be evidence of life on the Red Planet.
Researchers note that the presence of thiophenes (special compounds found in coal and oil deposits on Earth) can signal the presence of life once on Mars.
“We have identified a number of biological pathways characteristic of thiophenes that seem most likely than chemical, but we need evidence,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, one of the authors of the work.
Although thiophenes are composed of two biologically important elements, carbon and sulfur, it is still very possible that they could have formed during meteorites that heat sulfates to high temperatures.
If these compounds were indeed a sign of life, they could be the result of bacteria breaking down sulfates about three billion years ago, or, as an alternative, they themselves could be destroyed by microorganisms. However, it is still too early to draw conclusions.
Rover Curiosity studies organic compounds, dividing them into fragments. A new ESA rover Rosalind Franklin, equipped with an analyzer of organic molecules, will be able to fill in the gaps in the study.
Schulze-Makucha was most excited about the possibility of finding different ratios of light and heavy isotopes in organic compounds, the result of the destruction of the elements by the body and a “control signal” that indicates life.
There is a lot of work to prove the hypothesis.
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