There are many reasons for exploring Mars: Our potential can one day send a crew mission there, to learn about how the climate changes on its history and how it can apply to the earth, and to learn about various types of planets such as different internal structures for us . But the biggest reason for exploring Mars is to try to answer one of the biggest questions in Science: Could there be a life outside our own planet?
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The challenge is that looking for evidence of life is a very complex process. Almost certainly not life (as we know) on Mars now. There may be billions of years ago, but life, if there is a microbial. That means finding the evidence, we must look very carefully.
Curiosity and perseverance NASA Rovers are looking for signs of ancient life as the main part of their mission on Mars. When NASA revealed this week, curiosity recently made interesting discoveries, in the form of unusual carbon signatures
Curiosity collects and analyzes rock samples, and the researchers say that in some of them they have found carbon types associated with biological processes. “We found things on Mars which were very interesting, but we really needed more evidence to say we had identified life,” said the curious researcher Paul Mahaffy. “So we see what else can cause carbon signatures that we see, if not life.”
The researchers explained that his signature was comparable to what they would see from ancient bacteria on earth, which could produce this signature by releasing methane. But this explanation is based on the condition of the earth, and scientists are careful to show that we must not assume that it means the same process will be placed on Mars.
“The most difficult thing is to release the earth and release the bias we have and really try to enter into the basics of chemistry, physics and environmental processes on Mars,” Others said from the researchers, Astrobiologists Jennifer L. eigenbrode. “We need to open our minds and think outside the box, and that’s what this paper does.”
The researchers also offer two other explanations for non-biological signatures (or not related to life): that they can come from sunlight that affects carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars, or carbon can be abandoned when all our solar systems. Pass the molecular cloud.
“The three explanations are in accordance with the data,” Christopher House said, the leader of the carbon study (the paper mentioned above). “We only need more data to put it aside or out.”
Carbon is a key element for life, and on earth is part of the cycle that flows through air, water, and living things. We know how this works on our planet, and we suspect that something similar can happen to Mars, but we are not sure if there is a life involved. To understand whether the newly found carbon signature is completely biological or is a geological product of Mars, curiosity needs to study the carbon cycle on Mars in more detail.
“Defining the carbon cycle on Mars is really important to try to understand how life can enter the cycle,” said Curiosity scientist Andrew Steele. “We have done it very successfully on earth, but we just started defining the cycle for Mars.”
