Oxygen-Rich Liquid Water May Exist on Mars (scientificamerican.com) 44
Brines suffused with the life-giving gas could offer hope for past and even present microbes on the Red Planet, according to a new study. From a report: New research suggests our neighboring world could hide enough oxygen in briny liquid water near its surface to support microbial life, opening up a wealth of potentially habitable regions across the entire planet. Although the findings do not directly measure the oxygen content of brines known to exist on the Red Planet, they constitute an important step toward determining where life could exist there today. Aerobic respiration, which relies on oxygen, is a key component of present-day life on Earth. In this process, cells take in oxygen and break it down to produce energy to drive metabolism.
Mars's very low levels of atmospheric oxygen have led many scientists to dismiss the possibility of aerobic respiration there today, but the new research brings this possibility back into play. The study appears in the October 22 edition of Nature Geoscience. "Our work is calling for a complete revision for how we think about the potential for life on Mars, and the work oxygen can do, implying that if life ever existed on Mars it might have been breathing oxygen," says lead study author Vlada Stamenkovic, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. "We have the potential now to understand the current habitability." Although Mars is today a freeze-dried desert, it possesses abundant reserves of subsurface water ice, as well as some amount of liquid water in the form of brines. The brines' high salt content lowers the temperature at which they freeze, allowing them to remain liquid even on Mars's frigid surface.
In their new study, Stamenkovic and his colleagues coupled a model of how oxygen dissolves in brines with a model of the Martian climate. Their results revealed that pools of salty liquid at or just beneath the surface could capture the meager amounts of oxygen from the Red Planet's atmosphere, creating a reservoir that microbes might metabolically utilize. According to the research, Martian brines today could hold higher concentrations of oxygen than were present even on the early Earth -- which prior to about 2.4 billion years ago harbored only trace amounts of the gas in its air.
Mars's very low levels of atmospheric oxygen have led many scientists to dismiss the possibility of aerobic respiration there today, but the new research brings this possibility back into play. The study appears in the October 22 edition of Nature Geoscience. "Our work is calling for a complete revision for how we think about the potential for life on Mars, and the work oxygen can do, implying that if life ever existed on Mars it might have been breathing oxygen," says lead study author Vlada Stamenkovic, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. "We have the potential now to understand the current habitability." Although Mars is today a freeze-dried desert, it possesses abundant reserves of subsurface water ice, as well as some amount of liquid water in the form of brines. The brines' high salt content lowers the temperature at which they freeze, allowing them to remain liquid even on Mars's frigid surface.
In their new study, Stamenkovic and his colleagues coupled a model of how oxygen dissolves in brines with a model of the Martian climate. Their results revealed that pools of salty liquid at or just beneath the surface could capture the meager amounts of oxygen from the Red Planet's atmosphere, creating a reservoir that microbes might metabolically utilize. According to the research, Martian brines today could hold higher concentrations of oxygen than were present even on the early Earth -- which prior to about 2.4 billion years ago harbored only trace amounts of the gas in its air.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Large pools of imperial IPA MAY exist on mars according to climate change scientist's
Meh! Let's go to Europa, I prefer to drink Stout.
Or Not (Score:4, Informative)
Brines suffused with the life-giving gas could offer hope for past and even present microbes
Tell it to the anaerobes [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, but does... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
oxygen-rich liquid water exist IN Uranus? (sorry I couldn't help myself)
Hey, nwaack! FTFY ...
Re: if there is O2 there is life (Score:3)
But then again .... (Score:2)
... it might not.
What if we wake That Which Must Not Be Oxygenated? (Score:2)
Then all of our Space Force will be controlled by our Martian Overlords and we'll have to find allies from another solar system.
Unless they're originally from Planet X, and then we're good.
Ok so... (Score:2)
Wikipedia is your friend, water on Mars (Score:3)
It turns out there's quite a bit of water on Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Wikipedia is your friend, water on Mars (Score:5, Informative)
Really, a wikipedia article as evidence of water on Mars? No, as far as I know, water has not been discovered on Mars.
While some caution about Wkipedia is always healthy ... have you bothered to notice (let alone follow, and read) any of the HUNDREDS of references provided on that page? No? I suppose that if you deliberately avoid knowing things, it gives "as far as I know" some strange sort of truthiness.
NASA proves water on Mars exists (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
that's a complete guess if other compounds can be the backbone of life, some models have been proposed with zero examples in nature of course. since we see organic molecules everywhere in the universe it's not unreasonable to assume that life comes from and is built of those.
Re: (Score:2)
We know for a fact life can arise from organic molecules.
We have zero examples of any other kind of life.
We see organic molecules everywhere, even detected in another galaxy.
so, there IF there is life elsewhere, there is excellent reason to believe it will be based on the compounds that made life on earth.
There is zero reason to believe the other hypothesized life made of other elements would be found.
Oxygen does not matter (Score:3)
The first aerobic respiration evolved on Earth about 3 billion years ago, after over a billion years of anaerobic life. Aerobic respiration is a consequence of the accidental great oxygenation event in which the waste byproduct oxygen flooded Earth's atmosphere and nearly killed everything. It exists because it has to on this oxygen-polluted planet, not because it's important to life.
It makes no sense to look for pockets of oxygen to find life on Mars. That may actually be where you're least likely to find life, because the oxygen may have stifled the anaerobic life.
Did anyone see the arsia mons (Score:1)