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Possible sign of Mars life? Curiosity rover finds 'tantalizing' Red Planet organics - Space.com

Possible sign of Mars life? Curiosity rover finds 'tantalizing' Red Planet organics - Space.com

Possible sign of Mars life? Curiosity rover finds 'tantalizing' Red Planet organics - Space.com
Jan 18, 2022 1 min, 34 secs

There are three possible explanations for the new find, and one involves ancient Mars microbes.

NASA's Curiosity rover has found some interesting organic compounds on the Red Planet that could be signs of ancient Mars life, but it will take a lot more work to test that hypothesis.

Some of the powdered rock samples that Curiosity has collected over the years contain organics rich in a type of carbon that here on Earth is associated with life, researchers report in a new study. .

In the new study, which will be published Tuesday (Jan. 18) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research team looked at two dozen powdered rock samples that Curiosity collected with its percussive drill from a variety of locations between August 2012 and July 2021.

These high-carbon-12 samples came from five different locations within Gale Crater, all of which featured ancient surfaces that had been preserved well over the eons.

On Earth, organisms preferentially use carbon-12 for their metabolic processes, so enrichment in this isotope in ancient rock samples here is generally interpreted as a signal of biotic chemistry.

— More Mars methane: Curiosity rover spots biggest surge yet!

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The new find is especially intriguing because of the carbon-12 enrichment, but Curiosity has detected organic compounds on Mars before.

For example, the mission team previously reported the detection of organics in powdered rock samples.

The Curiosity team would love to drive through another methane plume and determine its carbon-12 content, exploring the origins of these organics further.

Further helpful data could also come from another Mars rover — Perseverance, a NASA robot that landed inside a different Red Planet crater in February 2021.

Perseverance is hunting for signs of ancient Mars life and collecting dozens of samples that will be returned to Earth for analysis, possibly as early as 2031.

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