It is always a wonderful news when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA makes a new discovery within the outer space and the planets closest to Earth. In fact, they have made another one and the report was released last week by NASA themselves.
Rover found molecules that could mean proof of ancient life
Ancient Life On Mars
One of NASA’s robotic explorers called Curiosity rover, managed to find something that could prove the said planet could support ancient life and it is preserved within the rocks. Not only that, it was also revealed that it has found some new pieces of evidence within the planet that connects to the possibilities of life. However, this doesn’t mean that life itself has been found suitable, it is just complex organic molecules.
Scientists didn’t find aliens technically, but it has got something to old with biology. This is what NASA’s astrobiologist, Ken Willford, said from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he even mentioned how it is definitely making them confident to find a direct evidence of biologic activity, there is a chance that they are getting close to finding it.
This new discovery is known to be a tough organic molecule in a three-billion-year-old rock and these organic molecules are known to carry carbon as well as hydrogen, which means it could contain oxygen as well as nitrogen. This then led them to the conclusion that life is possible because of these organic molecules. Turns out that non-biological processes actually have the ability to create them, but it is not exactly an implication that it could create life.
The associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate from the NASA Headquarters, Thomas Zurbuchen, said that Mars may actually be telling us that we are indeed very close into finding some evidence that life could exist on the Red Planet. This is one of the reasons why their missions are all worth it since it is always considered to be a step closer to finding what they have been looking for, together with some other discoveries.
NASA’s Jen Eugenebrode from the Goddard Space Flight Center said that the research may have not clearly found whether there is a record of any presence of life in the said planet, it is still a huge discovery since the clues they have found within the planetary condition indicates that Mars could carry life. This basically confirms that man couldn’t simply move to Mars as of this moment since it has been proven that the Red Planet is still very exposed to radiation and harsh chemicals that are coming from space.
Another Discovery
For the past six years, the Curiosity rover of NASA has been roaming around Mars’ Gale Crater, and it is where it found the molecules. Based on research, about 3 million years ago, this particular surface of Mars has water on it, but then again it vanished because of the brutal solar winds from the atmosphere of the planet.
The intense radiation also made it even more difficult for the water to stay since it is all around the planet’s surface. What the Curiosity actually did in order to identify the organic material is to basically drill into the rocks that are called mudstone. These sedimentary rocks are actually formed about a billion years ago at the bottom of the ancient lake, the samples are then analyzed by SAM.
A network of large radio antennas, used to communicate with missions in deep space, is located on a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert. The largest & most sensitive antenna at the Goldstone Complex is at Mars Station & weighs 16 million pounds! Learn more https://t.co/CudZYyIVoE pic.twitter.com/M2XySs2nZT
— NASA (@NASA) June 14, 2018
Other than the organic molecules, there is another research wherein the scientists revealed that they have found different variations of methane with the atmosphere of Mars within six years. This was detected by SAM instrument or Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars. Scientists believe that this methane they have found may be because of biological origins or it could also be from the water-rock chemistry.
Because they have managed to find methane in the atmosphere, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover as well as the European Space Agency, gave high hopes of finding even more organic into the surface and the atmosphere of the Red Planet. NASA’s lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program, Michael Meyer, said that they may not be able to confine that there are indeed some signs of life in Mars, they could confirm that these findings will lead to somewhere worth discovering and that they are going on the right track, and just a couple of years from now, they might finally find the answer.