NASA's Curiosity Rover found a strong carbon signal on Mars. Is it a sign of ancient life? It's too soon to say, but the findings are definitely intriguing.
Carbon is critical to life, as far as we know. So anytime we detect a strong carbon signature somewhere like Mars, it could indicate biological activity.Any strong carbon signal is intriguing when you’re hunting for life. It’s a common element in all the forms of life we know of. But there are different types of carbon, and carbon can become concentrated in the environment for other reasons. It doesn’t automatically mean life is involved in carbon signatures.
The team behind Curiosity’s SAM looked at 24 rock samples with this process and recently discovered something noteworthy. Six of the samples showed elevated ratios of C12 to C13. Compared to an Earth-based reference standard for C12/C13 ratios, the samples from these six sites contained greater than 70 parts per thousand more C12. On Earth, 98.93% of the carbon is C12 Earth, and C13 forms the remaining 1.07%.
But this is Mars. If the history of searching for life on Mars tells us anything, it’s not to get ahead of ourselves. One of the difficulties in understanding carbon signatures like this one is our so-called Earth bias. Most of what scientists know about atmospheric chemistry and related things is based on Earth. So when it comes to this newly-detected carbon signature on Mars, scientists can find it challenging to keep their minds open to new possibilities that may not exist on Mars. The history of the search for life on Mars tells us this.
The hypothesis fits since Curiosity found some of the elevated C12 levels at the tops of ridges—such as the top of Vera Rubin Ridge—and other high points in Gale Crater. The samples were gathered from “… a variety of lithologies and are temporally spread throughout the mission operations to date,” the paper states. Still, the molecular cloud hypothesis is an unlikely chain of events.
This figure from the study shows the three hypotheses that could explain the carbon signature. The blue shows biologically produced methane from the Martian interior, creating the deposition ofC-depleted organic material after photolysis. The orange shows photochemical reactions via UV light that can result in various atmospheric products, some of which would be deposited as organic material with easily-broken chemical bonds. The grey shows the molecular cloud hypothesis.
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