Why is there no life on Mars? Rover finds a clue
A discovery made by a NASA rover has offered a clue for this mystery, new research said Wednesday, suggesting that while rivers once sporadically flowed on Mars, it was doomed to mostly be a desert planet.
Mars is thought to currently have all the necessary ingredients for life except for perhaps the most important one: liquid water.
However the red surface is carved out by ancient rivers and lakes, showing that water once flowed on our nearest neighbour.
There are currently several rovers searching Mars for signs of life that could have existed back in those more habitable times, millions of years ago.
Earlier this year, NASA's Curiosity rover discovered a missing piece in this puzzle: rocks that are rich in carbonate minerals.
These "carbonates" -- such as limestone on Earth -- act as a sponge for carbon dioxide, pulling it in from the atmosphere and trapping it in rock.
A new study, published in the journal Nature, modelled exactly how the existence of these rocks could change our understanding of Mars's past.
- Brief 'oases' -
Lead study author Edwin Kite, a planetary scientist at the University of Chicago and a member of the Curiosity team, told AFP it appeared there were "blips of habitability in some times and places" on Mars.
But these "oases" were the exception rather than the rule.
On Earth, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the planet. Over long timescales, the carbon becomes trapped in rocks such as carbonates.
Then volcanic eruptions spew the gas back into the atmosphere, creating a well-balanced climate cycle supportive of consistently running water.
However Mars has a "feeble" rate of volcanic outgassing compared to Earth, Kite said. This throws off the balance, leaving Mars much colder and less hospitable.
According to the modelling research, the brief periods of liquid water on Mars were followed by 100 million years of barren desert -- a long time for anything to survive.
It is still possible that there are pockets of liquid water deep underground on Mars we have not yet found, Kite said.
NASA's Perseverance Rover, which landed on an ancient Martian delta in 2021, has also found signs of carbonates at the edge of dried-up lake, he added.
Next, the scientists hope to discover more evidence of carbonates.
Kite said the best proof would be returning rock samples from the Martian surface back to Earth -- both the United States and China are racing to do this in the next decade.
- Are we alone? -
Ultimately, scientists are searching for an answer to one of the great questions: how common are planets like Earth that can harbour life?
Astronomers have discovered nearly 6,000 planets beyond our Solar System since the early 1990s.
But only for Mars and Earth can scientists study rocks which allow them to understand the planet's past, Kite said.
If we do determine that Mars never hosted even tiny micro-organisms during its watery times, that would indicate it is difficult to kick-start life across the universe.
But if we discover proof of ancient life, that would "basically be telling us the origin of life is easy on a planetary scale," Kite said.
dl/giv
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mysterious Object Headed Into Our Solar System Is Coming From the Center of the Galaxy
Folks, it's official: the object that astronomers recently spotted blowing through the outer solar system came from interstellar space. Yesterday, the intriguing stranger was named A11pl3Z. Now, it's earned the esteemed designation 3I/ATLAS — that "I" standing for "interstellar." 3I/ATLAS is currently located between the orbits of the asteroid belt and Jupiter, the New York Times reports, where it's about 416 million miles away from the Sun, NASA said. That's equal to four and a half times the distance between the Earth and our star. But it's approaching fast. As we speak, 3I/ATLAS is hurtling toward the inner solar system at a speed of about 130,000 miles per hour — a "thousand times over the speed limit on a highway," Harvard's Avi Loeb quipped. "This thing is traveling pretty fast," Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told the NYT. "If you trace its orbit backward, it seems to be coming from the center of the galaxy, more or less," Chodas added. "It definitely came from another solar system. We don't know which one." 3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar object to reach our Sun's domain — hence the "3." The first was 'Oumuamua, spotted in 2017, which became famed for its unusually elongated shape. The second, dubbed Borisov, was a comet that spectacularly began to break apart. Provisionally, this latest visitor also appears to be a comet, making it the second known "rogue" comet in history. Its discovery and confirmation as an extrasolar visitor were a collaborative effort. What initially appeared to be an asteroid was first flagged Tuesday by a telescope in Chile that's part of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center quickly added the intriguing object to its list of confirmed near-Earth objects. So did NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Soon, more than 100 observations from telescopes across the globe poured in, including "tentative reports of cometary activity," the Minor Planet Center said Wednesday, providing enough data to designate it 3I/ATLAS. "There's no uncertainty" about its interstellar origins, Chodas told the NYT, because it's moving too fast to come from our own solar system. We can only speculate how it got here. Per the NYT, it probably formed as a comet around another star, before a gravitational interaction, perhaps a passing star, booted it out of its home system. How large 3I/ATLAS is is also a matter of some debate. If it were a rocky asteroid, the interstellar interloper would have to be about 12 miles wide to reflect the levels of light we're seeing, according to the NYT, which is what astronomers initially estimated. But since it's a comet, it's much harder to say. Comets owe their luminous appearance to a halo of gas and dust known as a coma, which is released when the object is heated up by sunlight. These comas appear much larger than the solid object at their center, and their tails even more so; Borisov's was nearly 100,000 miles long, astronomers estimated, or about 14 times the size of the Earth. "You can't infer the size of the solid object from the brightness of the coma," Chodas told the NYT. "So it's too early to say how big this object is." The good news is that there will be plenty of time to study 3I/ATLAS, which hasn't always been the case in our limited encounters with interstellar visitors; 'Oumuaua, for instance, vanished after just a few weeks. "It'll be easily observable for astronomers around the world," Chodas told the NYT. "It should be visible well into next year to large telescopes." 3I/ATLAS is expected to reach its closest approach to the Sun around October 30, NASA said, at a distance of about 130 million miles, putting it inside the orbit of Mars. More on: Scientists Investigate What Happens If You Snort Moon Dust
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump's signing of 'One Big Beautiful Bill' includes $85 million to move space shuttle Discovery from Smithsonian to Texas
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. On July 4, 2006, NASA's space shuttle Discovery launched on a "return to flight" mission that paved the way for it and its sister ships to fly for another five years. Now, a sprawling budget enacted on Independence Day will seemingly lead to Discovery lifting off again — though this time not into space, but rather from its place in the national collection. President Donald Trump signed into law the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill" today (July 4), a day after the legislation was narrowly passed out of Congress with only Republican support. Deep within the 900-page bill is a provision added by Texas' senators to transfer a "space vehicle" to a NASA center "involved in the administration of the Commercial Crew Program" and "placed on public exhibition at an entity within the Metropolitan Statistical Area where such center is located." The vague language, written in such a way to skirt Senate restrictions on reconciliation bills, was aimed at achieving the "Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act" introduced by Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn in April. "It's long overdue for Space City to receive the recognition it deserves by bringing the space shuttle Discovery home," said Cornyn in a statement released after the Senate passed its version of the bill in a vote of 50 to 50, with Vice President J.D. Vance breaking the tie. "Houston has long stood at the heart of America's human spaceflight program, and this legislation rightly honors that legacy," said Cruz, who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation. "It ensures that any future transfer of a flown, crewed space vehicle will prioritize locations that have played a direct and vital role in our nation's manned space program, making Houston, Texas, a leading candidate." "Bringing such a historic space vehicle to the region would underscore the city's indispensable contributions to our space missions, highlight the strength of America's commercial space partnerships, and inspire future generations of engineers, scientists, and pioneers who will carry our legacy of American leadership in space," he said. The bill allocates $85 million to move Discovery from the its display home of the past 13 years, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, to Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. "No less than $5 million" is earmarked for the transportation of the winged orbiter, with the remainder going towards the "construction of a facility to house the space vehicle." Per the bill, the move of space shuttle Discovery must be completed by Jan. 4, 2027. It does not stipulate how the orbiter should be moved. It is not clear if the $85 million will be enough to cover the transfer and display, given that the first time the retired shuttles were brought to their museum homes in 2012, the cost for just the preparation and delivery of each vehicle was $28.8 million, which did not include ground transportation to the museum. Discovery is the United States' most flown spacecraft in history, with 39 missions between 1984 and 2011. In the process of retiring the shuttle fleet, Discovery was identified by NASA as the "vehicle of record," such that it was kept more intact than Atlantis or Endeavour for the purpose of serving as engineering example at the Smithsonian. Related Stories: — Texas senators: Move space shuttle Discovery from Smithsonian to Houston — NASA's space shuttle: The first reusable spacecraft — Discovery: NASA's busiest shuttle Space Center Houston has not released any details as of yet about how or where it will display Discovery, other than to say it fits into its strategic plans moving forward. The center already exhibits a mock, walkthrough space shuttle, "Independence," mounted atop NASA''s original modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, "NASA 905." A 2011 investigation by the NASA Office of the Inspector General found "no evidence that the White House, politics or any other outside force improperly influenced the selection decision" of where the space shuttles were originally awarded by the space agency. It is unclear if there are any further actions the Smithsonian or other entities could take to halt Discovery's transfer.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
How synthetic lichens can launch Martian construction
This story was originally published on Construction Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Construction Dive newsletter. As NASA continues its preparations to land a human on the moon via its Artemis program, new research points to the possibility of building on the surface of not just the moon, but also Mars. A research team has developed a synthetic lichen system that can form building materials with no outside intervention, according to a news release from College Station, Texas-based Texas A&M University. The team was led by Congrui Grace Jin, an assistant professor in the school's Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution. Jin's team developed a synthetic community, or group of lichen species, that makes use of the advantages of those multiple species, according to the release. This system, which could enable autonomous construction on the planet, eliminates the need for external nutrient supplies and could eventually convert biomaterials into ink for 3D printing. For years, NASA has leaned on the private sector to help field solutions that can lead to permanent structures in space. Building in space presents challenges that range from the prohibitive cost of transporting building materials along with the harsh lunar and Martian climates. In this case, the surface of Mars is covered in regolith, which can consist of dust, sand and rocks. But Jin's team believes they've found a way around that. Their system grows with only Martian regolith simulant, air, light and an inorganic liquid medium, according to the release. In other words, no manpower needed. 'We can build a synthetic community by mimicking natural lichens,' Jin said in the news release. 'We've developed a way to build synthetic lichens to create biomaterials that glue Martian regolith particles into structures. Then, through 3D printing, a wide range of structures can be fabricated, such as buildings, houses and furniture.' That next step — using this regolith ink to print bio-structures using the 3D printing technique of direct ink writing — is already underway, according to the release. 'The potential of this self-growing technology in enabling long-term extraterrestrial exploration and colonization is significant,' Jin said. The study was funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program and recently published in the Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering. Recommended Reading GSA program to test 20 emerging technologies Sign in to access your portfolio
