The Mars mission is once again moving closer to another breakthrough as NASA’s rover has found more building blocks of life on the Red Planet.
NASA scientists emphasized that while these organic molecules do not guarantee extraterrestrial life, these molecules can also be formed as a result of meteorites and local chemical reactions. But the good news is that such clues that persist on the surface for 3 billion years are important to building evidence supporting Mars’ history.
Previously, the surface of Mars was thought to be enriched with huge lakes and flowing rivers, highlighting the possibility of life on the planet. To unravel this mystery, NASA’s Curiosity rover in 2012 explored the region consisting of a former lakebed previously called Gale Crater.
Equipped with just two small tubes of the chemical TMAH, a substance designed to break down organic material for analysis, the car-sized rover embarked on a high-stakes mission.
According to a recent study led by astrobiologist Amy Williams, “This experiment has never been done before on another world.”
The team faced immense pressure in the process, as Williams noted that they only had “two shots to get it right”.
The experiment was first launched in 2020 and more than twenty organic molecules have been detected so far. Some of the molecules are molecules that have never been confirmed on Mars before.
“The same stuff that rained down on Mars through meteorites also rained down on Earth, and it likely provided the building blocks for life as we know it on our planet,” Williams said.
Another molecule containing nitrogen “is a precursor to how DNA is ultimately built. We see the building blocks for life – prebiotic chemistry on Mars – preserved in these rocks for billions of years,” she added.
But these findings cannot say with certainty that life, even microbial organisms, ever existed on Mars. According to researchers, the only way to find evidence of life is to further analyze Mars’ rocks by bringing them back to Earth.
