Nassa Curiosity Rover He found the largest organic vehicles ever on Mars, raising confusing questions about whether life had appeared on the red planet billions of years ago.
The vehicles were discovered in a $ 3.7 billion rock sample in Yellowknife Bay, which is a lake of old Mars that houses all the necessary ingredients for life in the past of the most moisture planet.
The tests on board found that the rock contains long chain bans, and organic molecules believed to be residue of fatty acids. Vehicles can be made with chemical reactions that have no life, but they are decisive ingredients for cell membranes in all living organisms on Earth.
The researchers do not claim that they found a vital signature – the “smoking pistol”, which indicates that life was one day – but one of the experts said that the material represents the best opportunity for scientists to ever to determine the remains of life Mars.
Dr. Caroline Frescentte, an analytical chemist who led the research in the atmosphere and space Notice laboratory in Goyancort, near Paris. “If we have long-chain fatty acids on Mars, that may come-which is only one hypothesis-from the deterioration of the membrane of cells that represent 3.7 billion years.”
The Curiosity Rover has tracked more than 20 miles (32 km) via the Gale hole since it landed on Mars in 2012. After six years of the mission, Explore the effects of organic matter In the old clay, but all of them were relatively short carbon chain particles.
For the latest study, Freissinet and her colleagues developed a new procedure to test more sample of clay stone. This time, the organic curiosity has discovered much larger, which are Decane, Undecane and Dodecane.
The work on the ground showed that the sample of the Mars rock, known as Camberland, contains carboxyl acids, or fatty acids, which have turned into alkans in the heating process. “Although the in -laws can form these acids, they are considered international products of biochemistry, ground, and possibly Mars”, scientists wrote in The facts of the National Academy of Sciences.
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The additional analysis of the membership deepened conspiracies. When living organisms on the ground are made of fatty acids, the vehicles tend to contain equal numbers more than individual numbers of carbon atoms. This is because some enzymes build fatty acids by adding two carbon atoms at the same time. Scientists saw hints of this in Mars membership, too. “Camberland bother us,” said Frescent. “One in the middle with 12 carbon is more abundant than the other two. We have the same trend on Mars, but the direction of three molecules is not a real direction. However, it is very interesting.”
This result, at least, indicates that the signature signatures of the organic life can be preserved in the Mars’ rock music for billions of years, which enhances the hopes that life must appear on this planet, and its remains may remain.
The urgent question is what to do next. Curiosity carries a second sample of the rock that scientists want to analyze the greatest membership. This evidence may enhance more fatty acids that contain marital numbers of carbonate. But this will remain conclusive.
John Eleler, a professor of geology and geological chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, said that the analysis of the different isotopes of carbon and hydrogen in the membership can reveal its origins. However, tests require equipment found in a few laboratories on the ground. “Nowadays, there is no reasonable way to make such measurements using a tool on the site on Mars,” he said. You will have to wait for a sample task of Mars.
“The results mentioned in this paper provide the best opportunity we have seen to determine the remains of life on Mars,” Eller said. “But the stamp of the deal completely requires the return of these samples to the ground.”
