Organic molecules are the building blocks of all known life on Earth, and consist of a wide variety of molecules made primarily of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms. But a conclusion that Mars never had life - although it had conditions some 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago quite similar to conditions on Earth at that time - raises the obvious question of “why not?” But for Eigenbrode, future answers of either “yes” or “no” are almost equally interesting.įinding clear signs of early martian life would certainly be hugely important, she said. It will take different kinds of instruments and samples from drilling deeper into the extreme martian surface to answer the question of whether the organics came from living microbes. Organics are things that organisms can eat.” It was in a lake environment that we know could have supported life. “But the fact we found the organic carbon adds to the habitability equation. “This material was buried for billions of years and then exposed to extreme surface conditions, so there’s a limit to what we can learn about. The organic material was freed to be collected as gas only after being exposed to temperatures of more than 500 to 800 centigrade in the SAM oven. The organics, extracted from mudstone at the Mojave and Confidence Hill sites, had bonded tightly with ancient non-organic material.
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