On Thursday, scientists reported that meteorite 4 billion year old Mars that fell to Earth decades ago contains no evidence of ancient primitive life on Mars.
In 1996, a team led by NASA announced that the organic compounds in the rock looked as if they had been left by living organisms. Other scholars were skeptical Researchers have dismissed this hypothesis for decades, most recently a team led by Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Steele said that small samples of meteor They show that the carbon-rich compounds are actually the result of water – more likely brackish or saline water – that has flowed over the rock for a long time. The results appear in the journal Science.
During the Martian wet period and early past, at least two impacts appeared near the rocks, warming the planet’s surrounding surface, before a third impact bounced off the Red Planet into space millions of years ago. The 4 pound (2 kilogram) rock was found in Antarctica in 1984.
According to the researchers, the groundwater moving through cracks in the rock, while it was still on Mars, formed the tiny balls of carbon present. They said the same might happen on Earth and might help explain the presence of methane in Mars’ atmosphere.
But two of the scientists who took part in the original study disputed these latest findings, calling them “disappointing”.
“Although the data presented undoubtedly add to our knowledge of[the meteorite]the explanation is not new, nor is it supported by research,” wrote Kathy Thomas-Kiberta and Simon Klemet, space researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Unsupported speculation adds nothing to solving the mystery surrounding the origin of the organic matter” in the meteorite, they added.
According to Steele, advances in technology have made the team’s new findings possible.
He praised the actions of the primary researchers and noted that their theory of the life hypothesis was considered a “reasonable explanation” at the time. He said he and his team – which includes NASA and German and British scientists – took care to present their results “as is, which is an amazing discovery regarding Mars, not a study that rejects” the original theory.
He added in an email that this result “is enormous for our understanding of how life began on this planet, and helps filter out the methods we need to find life elsewhere on Mars, Enceladus or Europa,” referring to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
The only way to establish whether Mars has had microbial life or still has microbial life, according to Steele, is to bring samples back to Earth for analysis.
NASA’s Perseverance probe to Mars has already collected six samples to return to Earth in regarding a decade, and regarding 36 are needed.
After millions of years of drifting in space, a meteorite landed on an icy arena in Antarctica thousands of years ago. The little gray-green lump gets its name from the hills where his remains were found, “Allan Hills 84001”.
(Associated Press)
