Using data from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, researchers have, for the first time, measured the total organic carbon in Martian rocks. Organic carbon is the basis for organic molecules, which are created and used by all known forms of life.
While past measurements only produced information on particular compounds or represented measurements capturing just a portion of the carbon in the rocks, the new measurement gives the total amount of organic carbon in these rocks, NASA said. According to the agency, organic carbon on the Red Planet does not prove the existence of life there because it can also come from nonliving sources, such as meteorites, volcanoes, or be formed in place by surface reactions.
"Total organic carbon is one of several measurements [or indices] that help us understand how much material is available as feedstock for prebiotic chemistry and potentially biology," noted Jennifer Stern of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
A paper about this research, which was funded by NASA's Mars Exploration Program, has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In 2014, I placed rock samples in my SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instrument to measure the chemical compounds. After years of careful analysis from my team, they measured the total organic carbon in those Martian rocks for the first time. https://t.co/LeWXQ0nBny
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) June 28, 2022
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is the largest and most capable rover ever sent to the Martian surface. The rover is investigating Mars' habitability, studying its climate and geology to help advance the field of astrobiology.
The rover drilled samples from 3.5 billion-year-old mudstone rocks in the "Yellowknife Bay" formation of Gale Crater, the site of an ancient lake on Mars. Mudstone at Gale Crater was formed as very fine sediment (from physical and chemical weathering of volcanic rocks) in water settled on the bottom of a lake and was buried. Organic carbon was part of this material and got incorporated into the mudstone, according to NASA.
Scientists measure total organic carbon in Martian rocks for the first time
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