NASA Curiosity Discovers New Organic Molecules on Mars

What Happened?

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has drilled and analyzed rock samples including the most diverse collection of organic molecules ever found on Mars. According to NASA, of the twenty-one carbon-containing molecules identified in the sample, seven of them were detected for the first time on Mars.

“That detection is pretty profound because these structures can be chemical precursors to more complex nitrogen-bearing molecules,” said the paper’s lead author, Amy Williams of the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California said, “This collection of organic molecules once again increases the prospect that Mars offered a home for life in the ancient past.”

Why it Matters

The search for evidence of life on Mars has been ongoing for over a century. One hundred years ago, using rudimentary telescopes, astronomers spotted what they thought were a series of canals on Mars indicating intelligent life.

Though higher resolution telescopes eventually disproved those claims, the search for life on Mars has continued to the present day. NASA’s rovers have been able to collect and analyze direct soil samples on Mars, giving scientists unprecedented information about the red planet…

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Curiosity used a sophisticated minilab called Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), located in the rover’s belly. A drill on the end of the rover’s robotic arm pulverizes a carefully selected rock sample into powder and then trickles it into SAM, where a high-temperature oven heats the material, releasing gases that instruments in the lab analyze to reveal the rock’s composition. By using this equipment and technique, Curiosity has gathered hard evidence of the past presence of organic molecules on Mars.

Those kinds of organic molecules could be proof that life once existed on Mars. Though NASA scientists acknowledged that all the molecules identified by Curiosity can be produced by geological processes, they can also be the byproduct of biological processes, which would mean there was once life on Mars.

NASA selected the sites the rovers would explore based on the appearance of alluvial fans, which on Earth can only be created by water. While there is no liquid water on Mars today, the presence of alluvial fans suggests there was liquid water on the surface of Mars in the past. If there was life on Mars, it would have been near water.

One of the molecules found by Curiosity is thought to be a precursor chemical for the generation of DNA, which stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, and the famous double helix structure of DNA has become a recognized symbol for life. While the evidence is not conclusive that Mars once had life, it does increase the possibility that it did.

How it Affects You

If compelling evidence was ever found that Mars once had life, it could arguably be the most important discovery in the history of science. But it could also be a warning. Because if Mars once had life and now it doesn’t, that would prove complete planetary extinction occurred on Mars.

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