Nasa made a discovery on Mars that could point to life
Although Venus has recently moved into the center of interest as the possible home of extraterrestrial life, Mars is still considered to be the greatest bearer of hope in this regard. On the one hand, based on all that is known so far, at least temporarily quite acceptable conditions with higher temperatures, lakes, rivers and a denser atmosphere prevailed on the Red Planet several billion years ago. On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that even today there are still humid refuges here and there on the surface of Mars, which could ensure the growth of microorganisms.
The Nasa Curiosity Rover made an amazing discovery last week. The latest findings, reported in the New York Times, justify the longstanding assumption that extraterrestrial life may indeed exist on the red planet.
According to a measurement carried out by the Nasa Curiosity rover on Wednesday, scientists were able to detect large amounts of methane – three times more than all previous measurements – in the planet’s air. That suggests that microbes might survive on the planet. As noted in The Times, methane is normally only produced by living things.
It is not the first time that scientists have found methane on Mars: As early as 2004, after three years of observations, NASA researchers reported the discovery of methane in the air. “We’re 99 percent confident,” Michael Mumma, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told the Times following the news. “Actually, it surprised us all. We’re still trying to understand what it means. ”
Nasa could have surprising results
In 2013, however, new measurements by NASA’s Curiosity Rover revealed that the atmosphere contained very little to no methane, which reduced the prospect of life on Mars. The study’s author, Christopher Webster, director of the microdevice lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, described these results in a 2013 interview with Business Insider as “disappointing to many”.
Heavy Bombardment: How Soon Was Life Dead Again On Mars?
One of the most violent events in the history of the solar system may have been misrepresented in the past , according to not very few geoscientists: the ” Great Bombardment ,” a hail of asteroids that hit all inner planets, almost four billion years ago, suddenly and noticeably acute has covered catastrophically – and is said to have wiped out any early life that was already sprouting . Perhaps, however, so the skeptics, the bombardment of the inner planets was more chronic, so it started slowly and stopped very gradually ? Scientists have now taken another closer look at Mars: In a study published in Nature Geoscience, they come to the conclusion that there has actually been no catastrophic impact on the Red Planet for a surprisingly long time. Incidentally, this could have given possible Martian microorganisms a longer window of time with acceptable environmental conditions to settle in on Mars.
Some scientists had previously worked out this idea for the earth in a very similar way. They had come to the conclusion that the asteroid hail on our planet started earlier than initially thought and slowly subsided. For Mars, researchers led by geochronologist Desmond Moser from the University of Western Ontario in Canada have now investigated this in more detail. To do this, they looked at fragments of Martian meteorites that were found in the Sahara to find out when the impact occurred that once knocked them out of Mars. According to the analyzes, this probably happened no more than 20 million years ago. However, individual crystal fragments of the Martian meteorites are much, much older, as the analyzes show: some zircons – the age of which can be easily determined – and other minerals were formed up to 4.48 billion years ago and are therefore among the oldest and most primeval rocks on Mars that could so far be investigated at all.
It is very likely that these rocks once lay on the plateau of the old southern Martian hemisphere, which – in striking contrast to the younger north of the planet – is pitted by a variety of craters. Further analyzes of the Mars meteorite zircons under the electron microscope and with atom probe tomography made it clear to Moser and colleagues that almost none of the minerals examined was ever exposed to the high pressure that occurs when rock is hit by an impacting meteorite. This now allows for a revealing interpretation: Did the ancient minerals found in the Martian meteorite crash zone only emerge after the heavy bombardment had ended?
Or – so the even more courageous interpretation: Was there a really heavy “heavy bombardment” possibly not on Mars at all? According to the older, but now widely doubted theory, the asteroid hail in the inner solar system was triggered around 3.8 to 4 billion years ago by the movements of the outer gas giants of the solar system: When they gradually swung into their current orbits, their influence of gravity hurled the chunks en masse towards the inner solar system. Now, however, it is becoming increasingly difficult to explain why both earth and moon and – according to the new findings – also Mars were apparently seldom hit in the time window of this supposed hail of bombs. At least the strange differences between the Mars hemispheres could not have anything to do with this heavy bombardment, conclude Moser and colleagues: It was created more than 4.48 billion years ago and was hardly overturned by major hits afterwards. And hardly later, 4.2 billion years ago, according to model calculations, there was a phase with liquid water on Mars, in which life could have developed, according to the geoscientists: it is not unthinkable that life on Mars and Earth would last longer Might have had time to flourish undisturbed by land impacts.
Evidence for life on Mars underpinned
In a recent study, NASA scientists used new analytical methods to examine evidence of life found in a Mars meteorite in The investigations concerned in particular alternative approaches to explain the geological traces in the Martian rock. A biological cause remains the most plausible explanation.
Houston (USA) – In a 1996 publication, a team of researchers from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas (USA) announced the discovery of traces of extraterrestrial life in a rock sample taken from Mars. The meteorite fragment was found in 1984 in the Allan Hills ice field in Antarctica and bears the name ALH84001 based on it. A certain type of magnetite was found in this rock. Magnetite is a mineral made from iron and oxygen. This magnetite is very similar to a special type of magnetite that has so far only been found in bacteria on earth. However, skeptical scientists stated that this magnetite could also be produced by other geochemical processes without the involvement of life . Those processes could be simulated in laboratories and the magnetite could be created by thermal decomposition from heated carbonate. This process could have occurred on Mars due to the impact of a foreign body or another event that was associated with intense heat.
The results of the article recently published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica speak against this heat hypothesis. A biogenic formation of magnetite is the only realistic assumption, according to the NASA researchers. “We believe the biogenic hypothesis is now stronger than it was 13 years ago when we first introduced it,” says Everett Gibson, a senior scientist on the project. Harald Steininger, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau and member of the European Exomars project to study life on Mars, also sees it that way.
In another publication, the researchers describe morphological structures in two different Martian rock samples that are reminiscent of traces of terrestrial bacteria. However, the samples were discovered in two completely different places on earth, namely in the Egyptian Nile floodplain and in the Antarctic ice, which makes an earthly origin of the biomorphs, as the scientists call the structures, highly improbable. In addition, bacteria originating from the earth do not leave any trapped traces, but this is the case with the Martian stones. These biomorphological clues will be the subject of further analysis.
“Evidence of life on Mars has increased over the past decade,” says David McKay, NASA’s chief scientist for exploration and astrobiology deposits of clay minerals and carbonates in ancient areas, and recent ones methane was released into the Martian atmosphere, a discovery that may have several explanations, including the presence of microbial life, the main source of methane on Earth. ”
To recap, the new results did not provide any evidence of life on Mars. However, there are structures – especially in the ALH84001 meteorite – which, based on current knowledge, could very well have been created by simple biological processes on Mars. If there ever was life on Mars, it can only have been very simple forms. Complex life on Mars – that remains the fantasy of science fiction authors.
Life on mars? Nasa is said to have discovered it decades ago, says a researcher
Is there life on Mars? Scientists are trying to answer that. Now a researcher claims: NASA struck gold as early as 1976.
Is there life on Mars? Research has been investigating this question for a long time
One researcher believes: The “Viking” missions discovered it back in 1976 on Mars *
What is true about the researcher’s claim?
Is there life on Mars? This question has been a concern of researchers for a long time. As early as the 1970s, the US space agency Nasa was exploring Mars with two “Viking” probes in order to find life there. The two probes landed on the red planet in July and September 1976 and sent images to Earth.
The results of these biological experiments did not provide conclusive results as to whether organic life exists on Mars. In all experiments there were changes that could have been caused by organic life – but did not have to be.
Evidence of Life on Mars? Researcher: “I am convinced of it”
Now a scientist who was involved in research at the time speaks up in a guest article in “Scientific American”. A sample of the Martian soil was mixed with water and a radioactive nutrient solution. The theory behind it: If organisms that breathe on the Martian soil were to live in the sample, they would have to convert the nutrient solution – and the gases produced could be detected.
And that is exactly what happened: in the LR experiment, an increase in radioactively labeled gas was detected. “The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by the LR test on Earth, it seemed like we had answered this ultimate question.”
Nasa “Viking” mission did not produce a clear result for life on Mars
However, not all experiments at that time delivered a clear result about life on Mars, until today there is scientific discussion about whether “Viking” found life on Mars, or whether.
The majority of scientists favor an explanation like this, but some researchers still believe that “Viking” discovered life on Mars at the time. Levin also belongs to this group. He has been speaking regularly since the 1970s and in his current guest article asks himself why in the 43 years since the “Viking” mission no Mars lander has carried instruments to discover life on Mars. “Instead, NASA sent a series of missions to Mars to find out whether Mars was ever livable,” says Levin.
