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A new 40-year data analysis revealed that NASA's exploratory spacecraft had detected signs of life on Mars decades before the discovery of organic matter on the Red Planet in June. Earth
The 1976 Viking landers were sent to Mars in search of organic matter but came back with nothing. Revisiting data from the Viking mission, researchers identified chlorobenzene, a chlorinated organic material created in a reaction with salt found in Martian soil, according to results published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
The North Pole discovered that salt, called perchlorate and used in rockets and fireworks, became explosive when it was excessively heated. This means that the Vikings, who used an instrument to heat soil samples to locate organic matter, may have burned all the carbon molecules found in the soil when the perchlorate caught fire
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The Curiosity rover that identified organic molecules in a three-billion-year-old Martian rock used the same method, heating the samples in an oven at over 900 degrees Fahrenheit, to release sulfur. and organic carbon concentrates, said NASA. The sedimentary rock, called mudstone, probably did not contain perchlorate.
"It was totally unexpected and inconsistent with what we knew," said NASA global scientist Chris McKay New Scientist. "You get a new insight, and you realize that everything you knew was wrong."
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The presence of organic molecules could mean that life exists on Mars – or done at any given time. But organic molecules can also be created by non-biological processes such as chemical reactions that do not require life. Lead author of the study, Melissa Guzman, hypothesized that chlorobenzene could have contaminated its instruments from the Earth.
The Curiosity team also reported levels of methane, the simplest organic molecule. living beings on Mars. And although 95% of the Earth's methane is generated in biological processes, such as livestock waste and natural gas leaks, the presence of methane is not a guarantee of life on the planet.
Chris Webster told National Geographic
Another study published a few weeks earlier in the same review revealed inorganic secrets about the past of the red planet. The researchers found nearly 800 'ghost dunes', or sand-covered shells of ancient dunes, evidence that water and lava covered the Martian sand dunes with sediments that had hardened before the wind does not carry it. According to the researchers, the ancient microbes could still live in the dunes containing ancient sand. [Traduction] "There is probably nothing left over there now," said author of the study, Mackenzie Day, at the American Geophysical Union. "But there's never been anything on Mars, it's a better than average place."
Tags destroy Martian matter NASA organic years
