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Curiosity Finds Life-Crucial Carbon in Mars Rocks - Universe Today

Curiosity Finds Life-Crucial Carbon in Mars Rocks - Universe Today

Curiosity Finds Life-Crucial Carbon in Mars Rocks - Universe Today
Jun 29, 2022 1 min, 19 secs

That means the basis for the chemical compounds that forms our life is the element carbon.

A few years ago, the Mars Curiosity rover measured the abundance of total organic carbon in rock samples it took in Gale Crater.

The Mars Curiosity Rover’s mission is, in large part, to find evidence of life and habitability on Mars.

Scientists studied Mars rocks dug up in 2014 to see if they could figure out what the abundance of this element means for the existence of life on ancient Mars.

“Total organic carbon is one of several measurements [or indices] that help us understand how much material is available as feedstock for prebiotic chemistry and potentially biology,” Stern said in a press release statement.

Her team used data provided by the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument onboard Curiosity to characterize carbon species on Mars.

The discovery of organic carbon on Mars is not new, but prior findings had limitations.

Organic carbon was part of the material that settled down to the lake bottom to make the mudstone.

Beyond simply finding the high abundances of organic carbon in Mars rocks, the experiment also allowed SAM to measure its isotope ratios.

The presence of organic carbon is not necessarily definitive proof of life, according to Stern.

“In this case, the isotopic composition can really only tell us what portion of the total carbon is organic carbon and what portion is mineral carbon,” said Stern

So, even though the total organic carbon measured does not definitively prove life existed on Mars, it’s one more clue to the vanished ancient Martian environment

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