Mars may be a parched and inhospitable position today , but recently gatheredevidenceis gradually paint a portrait of a reeking human beings in its young old age , consummate with brook lakes , oceans and wrap river . Some of these bodies of body of water could have dawdle for millions of years , perhaps even long enough for life sentence to have had a fortune to evolve . But that ’s not the only grounds that scientists are led to consider that the Red Planet could have once been inhabitable .
After dig out around in Martian soil , NASA ’s Curiosity wanderer found grounds of utile nitrogen compounds that are a vital source of this component for lifespan on Earth . Although we still do n’t love whether crude lifetime form evolve on ancient Mars , which could have potentially used this frame of atomic number 7 , the data adds to the growing consistency of evidence that the satellite may have once harbored habitable environments that could have sustained life . The study has been published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
When we cogitate of the crucial factor for lifetime , liquid water and carbon probably first spring to brain , butnitrogenis also a critical element . It ’s a major component of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll and amino back breaker , the building blocks of protein . It ’s also set up in other of import biomolecules like DNA and ATP , the major energy currency of the cell .
Although vital to spirit , nitrogenneeds to be in the proper formto be useful . atmospherical nitrogen typically dwell of two atoms tightly bound by a triple bond , which is hard to transgress apart and therefore inaccessible . So before it can be utilized by certain animation conformation , it needs to be broken down and “ fix ” into more useful , reactive chemical compound , such asnitrate(one nitrogen atom bandage to three atomic number 8 atoms ) . On Earth , this cognitive process is acquit out by specialist N - fix bacterium , but lightning also does the job .
Interestingly , it turn out that this process of nitrogen fixation may have occur on Mars as scientists have now gathered indirect grounds for the bearing of nitrate in Martian rock ‘n’ roll . Using NASA ’s Curiosity bird of passage , samples were collected from three different spots near the probe ’s landing place internet site , two of which previously give various chemicals and weewee - modified minerals that indicated the former presence of a potentially habitable body of water , LA Timesreports .
The probe then cooked up the samples in its onboard lab and dissect the gases released . Among those identified , scientists happen a important amount of nitric oxide , which the team believes could have originated from nitrates in the soil since these compounds break down in a predictable mode when heated . After conduct contamination into thoughtfulness , the researcher found concentrations range from 70 to 1,100 parts per million of nitrate , which arecomparableto the amount recover in barren expanse of Earth , like the Atacama Desert .
Although the majority of nitrate on Earth are produced by know organisms , such as microbe , finding them on Mars is not needs indicative of life . A more likelyscenariois that they were produced by some variety of “ thermal cushion , ” such as lightning or impact from space debris . The researcher therefore plan tocontinue this workby investigating the potential unconscious process that could have generated these nitrates , and whether they are still at sport today .
[ ViaLA Times , PNAS , BBC Newsandspace.com ]
