Scientists from the US house company NASA have introduced as we speak the invention of chemical and geological traces on the floor of Mars that may very well be because of the presence of life, though they acknowledge that they can’t affirm it till these samples return to the earth in a future mission even with out date.
The discovering has been carried out by the exploration car Perseverance In the Jezero crater, the place billions of years in the past there was a big lake and a river system. During its Neretva valley exploration, the car examined the outcrops of the Bright Angel formation, composed of clay and conglomerate rocks fashioned by sediments deposited by water.
Researchers have recognized natural matter – carbon – in a number of samples, particularly within the goals baptized by the workforce as cataracts of Chevaya, temple of Apollo and Praderas de Walhalla. This natural matter might have reacted with minerals current within the rocks, giving rise to “striking” nodule -shaped spots and different greenish leopard pores and skin that had already been highlighted by NASA as attention-grabbing samples within the seek for previous life.
He Perseverance He has picked up a pattern of those rocks – denominated Zafiro Canyon – that has launched right into a watertight capsule that might be left on the floor of the crater till the arrival of a brand new robotic mission that may choose it up and convey it again to the earth for a extra detailed evaluation.
There is extra prospects that this discovering is because of the presence of life, scientists argue, to be resulting from an inert chemical phenomenon. But for now it’s not possible to rule out one or the opposite speculation, the investigators of the US Space Agency acknowledge in a research revealed Wednesday within the journal Nature. The evaluation in land laboratories would permit to find out exactly if minerals and natural matter discovered are actually indicators of previous life.
The discovering has been introduced this Wednesday at a press convention by NASA’s interim administrator Sean Duffy, the company’s head of science, Nicky Fox, and others chargeable for the invention.
“This may be the clearest trail of life we have seen on Mars,” Duffy mentioned to current the research knowledge of those samples, which had been taken by the Perseverance a yr in the past. The interim administrator, appointed by the president of the United States of emergency after the rejection of his principal candidate, Jared Isaacman, burdened that this mission was launched “during Trump’s first mandate”, with out including that the mission had been accredited, designed and constructed lengthy earlier than the tycoon got here to energy. To questions from journalists, Duffy has mentioned that the company is “looking for the best option” to recuperate the samples and convey them to the earth, with out giving dates when it would occur. The particular person answerable for the company has related the findings with the initiatives to keep up a everlasting human presence on the moon that may function preparation for “that an American proposes his foot on Mars.”
These rocks present “leopard spots that could have created primitive life forms” on Mars, Fox mentioned. The head of science has in contrast these spots with “the remains of the food of a microbe.”
“The discovery of a possible biofirma on Mars [indicios geoquímicos de posible origen biológico] It has deep implications for the search for Martian life, but it also requires caution and additional research before it can affirm that there has been life on the planet at some point, ”Alberto González Fairén, co -author of the study, explains to this newspaper. Add the researcher at the Astrobiology Center, in Madrid.
According to researchers, the nodules and spots known as reaction fronts – where biochemical processes would be carried out – could have been formed by biological processes similar to those generated by Vivianita and iron sulphides on Earth from microorganisms that consume iron and sulfate. There are possible non -biological chemical processes that could explain the formation of these minerals, although they are less likely given the conditions observed in the Martian crater. The environment where these rocks were formed was aqueous and with relatively soft temperatures, which would have allowed chemical reactions to be developed and that organic matter would be preserved.
“We counsel that new in situ analysis, in laboratory, by way of modeling and research of terrestrial analogues, centered on each abiotic and organic processes that originate the sequence of mineral and natural phases noticed within the Bright Angel formation, will enhance our understanding of the situations by which they had been fashioned,” write the authors of the work, among which are the Spaniards Alberto González Fairén and Felipe Gómez. “Ultimately, the return of Mars samples for research on Earth, together with the Zafiro Canyon pattern, would supply the most effective alternative to grasp the processes that gave rise to the distinctive traits described,” they add.
Since he landed on Mars in 2021, the Perseverance He has explored the different landscapes of the Jezero crater in search of sediments and rocks that can demonstrate if the planet housed living beings. He has accumulated 30 samples that he has been deposited on the surface, and he still has six more containers that reserve for new materials.
The big question is whether the United States will be able to go for those samples before its maximum rival in space, China. The Sample Return mission, planned for years and in which billions of dollars have already been spent, was scheduled for some time in the next decade, and would have the collaboration of the European Space Agency. The arrival of Donald Trump to power has translated the already maltrechos plans: the president wants to cut in half NASA’s scientific missions and cancel the sampling mission. According to several external analyzes, this mission cannot be done before 2040, which would mean arriving after China, which plans to launch its round trip mission to the red planet between 2028 and 2030. Not to be left behind, the United States would have to clarify its plans and undertake them before the end of next year and, yet, it might not win the race.
Ricardo Amils, researcher at the Madrid Astrobiology Center (CAB), believes that the publication and press conference on these findings have a double scientific and political intention. These new data were expected with great expectation, he acknowledges. “They have found samples whose chemical and mineralogical analysis with the methodologies that the Perseverance They allow suggesting that they are biological activity products, which is known as biofirms, mainly because there are indications that they were formed in temperature conditions compatible with the life we know. Hidden in his great and beautiful law, Trump had to make important concessions to keep some NASA missions alive, including a related to MSR.
Antonio Molina, a planetary geologist of the CAB, makes a key appreciation: “They have discovered the hint that they may have left dwelling beings, however not direct proof of them.” This implies that even when they arrive on Earth in the future, these samples wouldn’t be sufficient to cry out the invention of life on Mars. The researcher nonetheless analyzes necessary element of the research. “Above all, they converse of the mineral known as Vivianita, whose abiotic formation isn’t totally suitable with what we all know in regards to the space, as a result of it requires hydrothermal exercise that didn’t exist on this place of Mars. I believe these are the potential biofirms of this sort with extra potential which were discovered. It needs to be thought-about if there had been life on Mars was a lot time in the past that essentially the most unequivocal biomolecules nucleic or lipid markers, have already been degraded, and that is the one clue that’s of their existence.
https://elpais.com/ciencia/2025-09-10/cientificos-de-la-nasa-encuentran-posibles-rastros-de-vida-en-marte.html