Searching for signs of life, whether current, or fossilized, has been a NASA mission for sometime now. Recently, data culled by expeditions to the planet Mars has proven problematic vis a vis this goal. The problem is that certain seemingly useful specimens found on the red planet may in fact not be fossils at all.
When first viewed, deposits found on rocks on Mars appeared to show evidence of ancient life on that planet.
Closer inspection proved that the deposits found were not organic in nature and instead were likely the result of certain intrinsic chemical processes. Scientific data has shown that Mars was potentially habitable about 4 billion years ago for a brief period. Researchers have identified numerous reactive chains that could lead to deposits such as those found.
Because it does remain highly likely that there are biological remains, perhaps of a bacterial nature, to be found on Mars, it is imperative to distinguish from organic remains and those produced by chemical reactions.
Key Takeaways:
- Non-biological deposits in rocks on Mars make them resemble fossils that would be found if life ever existed there.
- Distinguishing these “false fossils” from real ones is important to the success of Mars exploration.
- Julie Cosmidis of the University of Oxford says we have been fooled before by life-mimicking processes.
“They call for greater interdisciplinary research to shed more light on how lifelike deposits could form on Mars, and thereby aid the search for evidence of ancient life there and elsewhere in the solar system.”
Read more: https://scienceblog.com/526686/life-on-mars-search-could-be-misled-by-false-fossils/
References:
- Science Blog (Website)
- NASA Goddard (YouTube Channel)
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