Hey guys, it's Mike Chen.
So pretty major news from NASA - did we just find evidence of ancient alien life on Mars??
Let me explain.
On June 8th NASA revealed in a live announcement that they had made two major new discoveries
on Mars, which they are calling “breakthroughs in astrobiology”.
Of course, the Red Planet has fascinated astronomers and astrobiologists for thousands of years,
from its potential to sustain life to its immense dust storms.
Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli was one of the first to propose the possibility
of intelligent life once existing on Mars.
He found lines and grooves called canali on the surface of Mars, which he believed could
not be naturally formed.
While this later proved to be the result of an optical illusion, his beliefs sparked the
beginning of a quest to search for life on Mars.
With the two recent papers published by NASA researchers in the journal Science, we may
be closer than ever before.
So what did they discover?
Let’s take a look.
First, the Curiosity rover found organic matter in soil samples 3-billion-year-old mudstones
in the Gale crater.
These mudstones form from the accumulated silt at the bottom of an ancient lake.
The collected samples were then analyzed by Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars, also
known as SAM, which is an instrument suite.
The rocks were heated in an oven to a temperature of over 900 degrees Fahrenheit (or 500 degrees
Celcius) in order to release the organic molecules contained within, which SAM then measured.
The new finding is evidence that supports the idea of ancient life on Mars, and potentially
even the possibility of current life on the Red Planet.
These organic molecules commonly associated with the ability to sustain life include carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
This helps paint a picture of what Mars was like billions of years ago, when the Gale
Crater held a water lake.
This lake supposedly contained all the necessities for supporting life, from energy sources to
chemical building blocks.
The data also shows that organic carbon concentrations in the rocks are on the order of 10 parts
per million or more, which is 100 times greater than any other detections on Mars’ surface
in the past.
According to Jen Eigenbrode at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the fragments of larger
organic molecules also contain sulfur, which helps to explain why these ancient lake sediments
can be preserved so well after billions of years.
However, Eigenbrode says, “Curiosity has not determined the source of the organic molecules.
Whether it holds a record of ancient life, was food for life, or has existed in the absence
of life, organic matter in Martian materials holds chemical clues to planetary conditions
and processes.”
This finding is the first piece of conclusive evidence for the presence of large organic
molecules on Mars’ surface.
But there is a possibility that these molecules were formed by non-biological processes.
Although these results can’t prove the existence of life just yet, they do provide a promising
direction for where we should be looking next.
In the second study, NASA scientists reported that there were also seasonal variations in
methane detection.
These variations in the Martian atmosphere were studied over the course of 3 Mars years,
which is equivalent to 6 years on Earth.
Signs of methane, the simplest organic molecule, has been detected in Mars’ atmosphere for
a number of years.
But while the previous reports have shown large, unpredictable bursts of methane, this
latest study in the Gale crater reveal a peak in the warmer summer months and a drop in
the winter.
During the Martian summer, the methane concentration rises to about 0.6 parts per billion, and
in the winter, the drops to 0.2 parts per billion.
Season fluctuation in atmospheric molecules is rare, even on Earth, so this fascinating
new finding provides a pattern that scientists can finally analyze.
The scientists leading the study suspect that this ebb and flow of methane release is because
it comes from deep underground.
The gas would be trapped by ice crystals, called clathrates, in the winter, but when
the ice melts in the summer, the gas is released.
However, the very presence of methane on Mars has always been somewhat of an anomaly for
scientists because methane only survives for a few hundred years.
So the fact that we can detect it now means that there is something replenishing it.
Although this could have been created by water-rock chemistry, the possibility of a biological
origin cannot be dismissed.
These two findings are the closest leads we have to figuring out if ancient life once
existed on Mars.
It brings us one step closer finding out the truth and provides a clue as to where we should
be looking next.
According to Michael Meye, the lead scientist for NASA’s Mar’s Exploration Program,
these results are a great sign, because it tells scientists that they are on the right
track.
What do you guys think?
Do you think intelligent exist on Mars before?
Do you think it's still there right now?
And, as I mentioned before in one of my videos, do you think we are the intelligent beings
from Mars?
Because, you know, we tend to overpopulate a planet, use up all the resources, then maybe
we moved to Earth?
I don't know, I've always been partial to number three.
But again, let me know what you think in the comments.
Thank you all so much for watching, see you later.