KONTAN.CO.ID – The mystery of the Planet Mars is slowly being revealed. A leading international research team led by Benton Clark of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, recently explored one of the key questions in astrobiology – whether life might have arisen on Mars.
According to their analysis, it is very possible that the chances of the emergence of life on Mars are at least as high as on Earth, because the requirements as we understand them today are all on Mars, including liquid water, organic compounds, essential elements and minerals, and access to energy sources.
Launch Air & Space, Saturday (19/6), the authors provide several reasons why the chances of life starting on the Red Planet may actually be higher than on Earth.
First, Mars should receive a higher influx of organic matter from asteroid and comet impacts. Second, sulfur, an element essential to biology, is more common on Mars.
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Third, Mars had an early start to the origin of life, as Earth was hit by a large impactor that created the Moon only 20 to 100 million years after our planet formed, which of course sterilized the surface.
Four, Mars undergoes many wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycles, which are essential for the concentration of organic compounds. In fact, this cycle was likely more common on the Red Planet earlier in its history.
While 95% of Earth’s landmass is submerged under oceans, only five percent of Mars is, which means Mars would have three times as much land despite its smaller size.
Wet-dry cycles and freeze-thaw cycles occur best when there is exposure to air, which supports a “hydrothermal pool” scenario for the origin of life.
But if life on Earth started on the ocean floor, as some researchers have found, it’s unlikely to happen on Mars.
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That doesn’t mean there are no opportunities at all. For example, the Nili Fossae region on Mars is considered by some researchers to be similar to the “Lost City” hydrothermal field in the Atlantic Ocean.
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