Despite its freezing temperatures, thin atmosphere, and lack of surface water today, scientists believe that Mars could once have been capable of supporting life. No one knows whether life ever did develop there (though there is almost certainly nothing alive there now), but finding out if our neighboring planet ever did host microbial life is one of the great questions in astronomy today. Now, scientists are one step closer to answering that question.
The NASA Curiosity rover has discovered the largest organic compounds ever found on Mars, suggesting that the conditions for life to develop could have been present on the planet billions of years ago. Organic compounds aren’t necessarily indicators of life, but they are its building blocks, so finding these compounds in such a large and well-developed state supports the idea that it may have been possible for life to develop there.
The compounds identified are called decane, undecane, and dodecane, and are made up of carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms. They are thought to be fragments of fatty acids, which are a building block for life on Earth.
Curiosity has previously discovered small organic molecules on Mars, but these recently found compounds are larger and would have require chemistry to reach a more advanced state to be produced. The finding is also good news for potential life hunters, as it shows that the indicators of life could still be around even after billions of years.
“Our study proves that, even today, by analyzing Mars samples we could detect chemical signatures of past life, if it ever existed on Mars,” explained lead researcher Caroline Freissinet of the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
Curiosity has also found evidence that liquid water was once present in the same region where the compounds were found, called Yellowknife Bay. Samples taken from the area, which appeared to be an ancient lakebed, showed the presence of clay minerals which form in water, meaning that there likely was plentiful water there once. There are also signs of sulfur which helps to preserve organic molecules and nitrates and methane, which on Earth can be associated with living things (though which can come from other sources too).
“There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars,” said fellow researcher Daniel Glavin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.