NASA Showed Up “Possible Traces” Of Life On Mars
NASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered a variety of organic materials that may indicate life in Jesero Crater on Mars. The obtained data indicate that life could have existed on the planet in the past. Researchers believe that this basin once contained an ancient lake, including the delta of a river that once flowed into it. This is one of the most likely regions for detecting residual signs of life on Mars.
Organic molecules like those seen in Crater Lake contain carbon and often hydrogen atoms. They are the basic components of life as we know it on Earth, although they can also evolve abiologically. “They are a fascinating clue for astrobiologists because they are often seen as the building blocks of life,” co-author Joseph Razzell Hollis, a research fellow at the Natural History Museum in London, told Newsweek. “Importantly, they can be produced by processes unrelated to life as we know it, and therefore organic molecules are not proof of life in themselves without sufficient additional evidence that cannot be explained by non-biological – or abiotic – processes”.
The rover observed the compounds with an instrument – Scanning Habitable Environments Using Raman Scattering and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) – which maps organic molecules and minerals on the surface of rocks.
Now that researchers have observed the molecules, they will need to better study them in ground-based laboratories to draw further conclusions about their origins.
