Ein Instrument auf dem Rover Perseverance hat große, komplexe Kohlenstoffverbindungen neben ungewöhnlichen Mustern auf der Oberfläche von Gesteinen identifiziert, die Spuren mikrobieller Aktivität ähneln
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2531752-possible-signs-of-ancient-life-on-mars-are-rich-in-complex-carbon/
9 Kommentare
damn too early for the reddit scientists to summarise what this means
Damn, if only there was some kind of mission planned to take these finds and send them back to earth for further analysis…
Some form of Mars Sample Return…
Meanwhile we got a potus that’s getting drug around a no-longer reflecting pool by a single-cell organism…….
Yet more evidence that Dr. Gilbert Levin was right all along.
Direct link to the paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0047
This isn’t quite a smoking gun but this seems like a big deal. They’ve detected „macromolecular carbon“ in rocks which look like the kind of rocks that you’d expect to be from „living ooze“ (to use the technical term). Life as we know it is built out of carbon-based macromolecules (biopolymers) like dna/rna, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, etc. If this evidence was found on Earth we’d just assume it came from organisms, but on Mars the bar for proof is a bit higher.
First, there’s some uncertainty in the detection of macromolecular carbon. Second, there are potential non-biological origins for macromolecular carbon. So this isn’t proof of life on Mars, but it’s suggestive, and life is perhaps one of the most straightforward explanations for these observations.
Of coure, this is yet another rock that we would really like to have on Earth to be able to more in depth analysis on.
Huh, maybe Viking results weren’t due to contamination after all.
Pretty funny they named the sample sites. Gotta be the smallest canyon and mountain in the Solar System now?
It’s a shame that Perseverance wasn’t equipped with the capacity of detecting biosignatures / extant life. I am convinced microbial life still exists on Mars, and it may even exist on Venus (aside from the icy moons). I believe that simple life is „just“ an extension of chemistry when certain requisites are fulfilled. But complex life is another entirely different beast, and I doubt it exists on Mars, or in Venus, for that matter.
Europa, however, may have had its subsurface oceans for 4 billion years, and I would be surprised if we don’t ever find „fish“ analogues or anything more complex than microbes.
In an article about *seeing* what *appears* to be signs of life based on *markings* on a rock you would think the article would include *pictures* of said markings!