Samples from Curiosity Mars Rover Suggest Possibility of Past Organic Matter (nasaspaceflight.com) 32
The space-news web site NASASpaceFlight writes:
While organic compounds have been confirmed on the Martian surface and near-surface areas since 2018, new Earth-based experiments point to a potentially tantalizing series of signatures from Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument that could indicate the presence of organic salts at the rover's Gale Crater location. What's more, the new research from a team led by J. M. T. Lewis, an organic geochemist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, points to further potential evidence that organic salts might be prevalent across the Martian terrain. The hard part is conclusively detecting them.
For decades, scientists theorized that organic compounds were almost certainly to have been preserved to some detectable degree in the Martian surface environment. In 2018, Curiosity's instruments allowed Eigenbrode et al. to conclusively prove that they were in fact there. In turn, if organic compounds were present at one time, their by-products — organic salts — would still be around as well, even given the harsh radiation environment of Mars compared to Earth.
While organic compounds and organic salts can form from the presence of microbial life, they can also form from geologic processes. Though not confirmed, organic salts would be further evidence that organic matter once existed on Mars' surface, and, if they are still present, could support hypothetical microbial life on Mars today, as some life on Earth uses organic salt as food/energy.
For decades, scientists theorized that organic compounds were almost certainly to have been preserved to some detectable degree in the Martian surface environment. In 2018, Curiosity's instruments allowed Eigenbrode et al. to conclusively prove that they were in fact there. In turn, if organic compounds were present at one time, their by-products — organic salts — would still be around as well, even given the harsh radiation environment of Mars compared to Earth.
While organic compounds and organic salts can form from the presence of microbial life, they can also form from geologic processes. Though not confirmed, organic salts would be further evidence that organic matter once existed on Mars' surface, and, if they are still present, could support hypothetical microbial life on Mars today, as some life on Earth uses organic salt as food/energy.
DISCOVERY! (Score:5, Insightful)
This will be, what, the 10th time they've made this discovery? https://mars.nasa.gov/news/834... [nasa.gov]
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Organic or Biological? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is obvious that there are organic chemicals on Mars, and in deep space. Organic chemicals are ones that involve carbon chains. The Miller–Urey experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] showed long ago that it is fairly easy to produce lots of interesting organic compounds without biological activity.
The question is was it biological.
The fact that most science journalists do even know what word "organic" means to chemistry means that what we read is confused garbage.
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The fact that most science journalists do even know what word "organic" means to chemistry means that what we read is confused garbage.
I find the lack of carbon in these kinds of articles disturbing...
How hard is it to test for chirality? (Score:2)
If they're all left-handed or all right-handed that's a clear indicator of biological origin. 50-50 and it's just chemistry.
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Or it's 100% life-derived chemicals which have racemised.
Otherside (Score:1)
60 years on and this mission fails to justify the quality of life improvements for its insane budget.
How about NASA finding out how to efficiently recycle plastic other than non-recycling burning it for energy.
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How about NASA finding out how to efficiently recycle plastic other than non-recycling burning it for energy.
Just today I was talking to a guy who digs ditches for a living with his bare hands in the hot sun. He used to be working on advanced recycling technologies, but then NASA started launching Mars rovers, and all of the industrial R&D money that used to go to recycling research suddenly went into government rover money. Really tragic.
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I suspect your post is an example of Poe's Law, although given Poe's Law, it's hard to tell.
Re:DISCOVERY! (Score:4, Interesting)
I know, right!
It's time for scientists, journalists (and website editors) to stop with these endless articles that state "A geological process was discovered on Mars that strongly might be, or just as equally strongly might not be, evidence for past life".
Science journalism in 2021 is completely pathetic, if not completely dead. Scientific "factual" articles are starting to sound like something grabbed from Coast to Coast AM and published it on some website as irrefutable proof of bigfoot or the Bermuda Triangle.
We've seen these "this might be evidence for life, but it also might not be any evidence for life" stories since the days of the Viking landers. (almost 50 years ago).
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Man, I miss Space Ghost Coast to Coast...
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Nuke it to hell first to melt the ice/CO2 caps Then colonize it. As for oil, what oil?
Why not just detect life itself already? (Score:2)
Its not actual proof of life, its we found something here that life might be able to feed on. So that really doesn't mean much. And it seems like they make those discoveries over and over again. But at some point, you need an experiment that actually detects life itself, so why not do that? Like, a culture or something like that? Maybe a microscope to look for microscopic fossils? Its getting pretty frustrating at this point.
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Why not just detect life itself already?
Because shooting lasers at samples makes that singularly difficult.
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The last 2 (3? I haven't been wasting effort on keeping count) rovers have included microscopes. Here's one [wikipedia.org].
With a few hundred thousand rock sample descriptions under my belt, that strategy isn't terribly successful for samples drilled from terrestrial phanerozoic rocks ("phanerozoic" translates into english as approximately "period of evident life"). If you want to improve your chances of finding fossils in a sample, you generally need to perform multiple
Organic salts (Score:5, Funny)
Readings of monosodium glutamate spiked shortly after Zhurong lander arrived.
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Readings of monosodium glutamate spiked shortly after Zhurong lander arrived.
Humor? Is...is that you? Thank fuck you survived the last couple of years.
I was getting worried that wood splinters would soon become a real problem for proctologists everywhere...
Methane (Score:2)
Methane is an organic compound. Jupiter is made of it. Look no further.
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There's probably an Earth-mass or several of silicates in there too (around a half-percent w/w), but the Juno probe's orbit isn't clearly indicating how much (or how it is distributed through the hydrogen/ helium interior).
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Perhaps he meant Titan, where there is at least 5% methane in the atmosphere.
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*** Off-by-one (fencepost) error in Planets.list ***
Contradiction? (Score:2)
"While organic compounds and organic salts can form from the presence of microbial life, they can also form from geologic processes. Though not confirmed, organic salts would be further evidence that organic matter once existed on Mars' surface..." Very strange reasoning. X and Y can be formed by A or by non-A. We think maybe there is X, hence evidence for Y. And no evidence, afaict, for life, past or present, because there are other competing explanations.
Visit the poles already (Score:1)
If the multiple universe theory is correct, doesn't that mean there's a universe where the conspiracy theorists are right about everything?