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A new NASA study has shown that traces of past life on Mars could have been destroyed in some parts of the planet.
The astonishing discovery does not reduce the likelihood that Red Planet scientists can detect manifestations of life, writes the LiveScience.com portal.
NASA’s Curiosity spacecraft made a surprising discovery by exploring the clay sedimentary rocks around Geilo Crater, its landing site. Geilo Crater is a place where the lake used to be, formed 3.6 billion years ago. years when the red planet was hit by an asteroid.
Clay is a good sign to show the existence of life, since it is generally formed when rocky minerals rot after contact with water, an essential component that proves the existence of life. Clay is also an excellent material that can preserve microbial fossils.
However, when the Martian Curiosity took two samples of the same age (3.5 billion years) of argillite, a sedimentary rock containing clay, separated by 400 years, the researchers found that one of these samples contained clay minerals, half less than expected. But that sample contained more iron oxides, compounds that give Mars a distinctive brownish-pink color.
A new NASA study has shown that traces of past life on Mars could have been destroyed in some parts of the planet.
According to the team of scientists, the culprit for this geological difference is the extremely salty water that flowed into the mineral-rich clay layers and destabilized them. In this way, the minerals were washed away, leaving no geological or even biological traces on the rocks.
“In the past, we thought that the layers of clay minerals that formed at the bottom of the crater of Lake Geil billions of years ago were still the same as if they had preserved that moment of formation,” said the study’s lead author, Tom Bristow, of Mount Wines, California, said in a Research Center Investigator statement. “But then, in some places, the salt water destroyed these clay minerals, essentially destroying the traces of the rocks.”
The Martian carried out the study by drilling into layers of rocks from Mars and then using CheMin chemical and mineralogical equipment to analyze the samples.
The process of chemical transformation in sediments is called diagenesis; According to the study authors, it could have led to the formation of new life beneath the surface of Mars, although it destroyed some of the previous evidence of life on the planet’s surface.
Thus, according to the scientists, although previous evidence of life may have disappeared due to the salt water, the chemical conditions caused by this influx of salt water probably provided an opportunity for new life to develop there.
“These places are great for looking for traces of ancient life and appreciating the possibilities of life,” said John Grotzinger, a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology and a co-author of the study. – Although diagenesis destroyed the evidence of life from the time the lake was here, it formed the chemical gradients necessary to sustain life underground. So we are very excited to find that out. “
A new NASA study has shown that traces of past life on Mars could have been destroyed in some parts of the planet.
The Curiosity mission to Mars began nine years ago. Although the mission was originally scheduled to last two years, the Martian continues to explore the Red Planet and seeks to determine the historical viability of Mars. Curiosity is now being aided by another new Martian, Perseverance, who landed in February 2021. Your task is to collect rock and soil samples that can be transported to Earth.
Curiosity’s research has not only revealed how the climate of Mars is changing, but it has also helped Perseverance choose which soil samples to collect to be more likely to find traces of life.
“We have discovered something very important: some parts of the rock on Mars cannot adequately preserve the planet’s past and possible traces of life,” explains Ashwin Vasavada, NASA Curiosity project scientist at the California Jet Propulsion Laboratory. and co-author. of The study. “But we are lucky to have found both types of rocks near Geilo crater and we can use mineralogy to separate them.”
The search for life on Mars received a new boost thanks to a new study that could identify possible locations for the release of six methane gases. According to Live Science, this gas was discovered by Martian Curiosity while exploring the Geilo crater.
Methane gas is formed in Earth’s atmosphere only from biological sources, so scientists are happy to discover this gas on Mars.
Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6551/198
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