2023-07-14 02:54:00
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The NASA rover “Perseverance” has been exploring Mars since February 2021 – and has already found organic material. © NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
It’s not the first time a NASA rover has found organic material on Mars. But the new finds are particularly important.
Pasadena – Is there life on Mars? This is one of the fundamental questions that research is asking and to which researchers are working with the help of various rovers. Now the NASA rover “Perseverance” has come across something that is exciting in this context: The rover has discovered a large number of organic molecules in the Mars region in which it is traveling.
This refers to molecules that consist of carbon and often contain other elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus or sulfur. “They’re an exciting lead for astrobiologists because they’re often thought of as the building blocks of life,” planetary scientist Sunanda Sharma of the California Institute of Technology told the Portal Space.com.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover also struck gold on Mars
It is not the first time that a Nasa rover has discovered organic molecules on Mars: “Curiosity” had already done so a few years ago in Gale Crater on the red planet. The finding of organic molecules in another region on Mars – “Perseverance” is located in Jezero crater – indicates, according to the experts, that the building blocks of life are widely distributed over Mars and, above all, might have arisen through different mechanisms.
Sharma and her team have a study on the find in the journal Nature published. To do this, the researchers analyzed data from the SHERLOC instrument from Perseverance. Among other things, the instrument consists of a UV laser that stimulates molecules to fluoresce. The wavelength at which the molecules fluoresce can help researchers identify them. SHERLOC can also map the spatial distribution of organic matter in rocks and correlate them with the minerals found there. In this way, researchers can better understand the environment in which the organic compounds found were formed.
Perseverance analyzes soil samples from Mars for NASA
The research team looked at data from two locations on Mars: Máaz and Séitah. The researchers were able to detect organic material in all ten samples taken by the NASA rover at the two locations. The finds “suggest the possibility that the building blocks of life may have been present on the surface of Mars for a long time,” says Sharma.
With the help of SHERLOC, the researchers found many different classes of organic molecules that appeared in different patterns – mostly together with minerals that are associated with water. However, the experts might not exactly identify the molecules. “To confirm the presence of organic matter and their specific types, we would have to bring the samples back to Earth,” says Sharma. “That’s our goal.” In fact, some samples that SHERLOC analyzed were deposited on Mars for a future return mission to Earth – they might be examined much more closely on Earth in the future.
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Researchers want to analyze Martian rocks on Earth
Researchers have been waiting a long time to finally be able to analyze Mars rocks on Earth, because from a distance nobody can tell exactly what the organic molecules are – are they indications of past or current life on Mars? Not necessarily, as Sharma emphasizes: “It is important that they can arise through processes that have nothing to do with life.” The researcher admits it opposite the portal Sciencealert.com Convinced: “This is an important piece of the puzzle we are creating regarding the presence, distribution and nature of organic matter on Mars.” (tab)
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