NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover has found the highest concentration of organic molecules to date, which could indicate the presence of microbes in ancient times, and scientists can’t wait to welcome rock samples back to Earth to confirm.
While organic matter has also been found on Mars in the past, the new discovery is considered particularly promising because it comes from an area in a lake where sediment and salt are deposited, conditions which could be favorable for life to emerge, Agence France-Presse reported.
“To be fair, these will be or have been the most valuable ones we have ever collected,” said David Shuster, a NASA scientist who will study samples obtained from Persistence, to reporters in a rock samples briefing.
Organic molecules are compounds that contain mainly carbon, often containing hydrogen and oxygen, but sometimes other elements, which are not always produced by biological processes.
Further analysis and conclusions will have to wait until the Mars Sample Return mission, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to bring back rock samples, scheduled for 2033.
The rover Mars Persistence, nicknamed “Percy”, landed in the Jezero Crater on Mars in February 2021. Its main mission is to collect signs that could include ancient life or with Martian geological, Sample of past climate characteristics.
The Perseverance delta he is exploring was formed 3.5 billion years ago, and he is currently surveying sedimentary rocks there, which are formed from grains of various sizes deposited in the watery environment at the time .
Persistence collected two samples from a 1 meter wide rock called Wildcat Ridge, and on July 20 some of its surface was polished and analyzed with ultraviolet spectroscopy.
The analysis revealed a class of organic molecules called aromatics, which play a key role in biochemistry.
▲ Persistence collects rock samples at “Wildcat Ridge”. (Image via facebook.com/NASPersevere).
“It’s a scavenger hunt for possible signs of life on other planets,” said NASA astrobiologist Sunanda Sharma. “Organic is a clue, and the clues we get are getting stronger and stronger … I personally think these were the results. very moving, it felt that we in the right place with the right tool at a very critical time.”
Other tantalizing clues about the possibility of life have been found on Mars in the past, such as the ongoing discovery of methane by Curiosity, the predecessor of the Perseverance rover. However, although methane is a by-product of microbial digestion on Earth, it can also be produced by thermal reactions that do not involve living organisms.
