(ORDO NEWS) — NASA conducted an experiment, the results of which are somewhat disappointing. He did not disprove the theory about the presence of life on Mars in the past, but showed that people have been looking for it for so many years in the wrong place.
A lab experiment has shown that rovers need to drill holes at least two meters deep to find traces of life, as ionizing radiation from space rapidly destroys small molecules such as amino acids.
The trouble is that all the rover missions that have explored the Red Planet in the past and are doing so now are only able to drill a few centimeters and are therefore unable to find any signs of life.
– In their experiment, the scientists mixed different types of amino acids with quartz, silicon hydroxide, and perchlorate to mimic Martian soil.
– After that, the samples were placed in vacuum chambers.
– Some samples were at room temperature, others were cooled to -55 degrees Celsius familiar to Mars.
– They were all treated with different levels of gamma radiation to simulate doses of cosmic radiation.
Our results indicate that amino acids are degraded by cosmic rays on the Martian surface, rocks and regolith much faster than previously thought. Modern rover missions drill to a depth of two inches (about five centimeters).
At this depth, it would take only 20 million years to completely destroy an amino acid. Perchlorates and water increase the rate of destruction even more,
says the Goddard Space Flight Center.
20 million years in space terms is literally nothing, because probable Martian life could have existed billions of years ago.
On Earth, the dense atmosphere and magnetic field protect all life from the deadly cosmic radiation. In the distant past, they were also near Mars.
Moreover, today there is enough evidence that seas and rivers with liquid water existed on the surface of the planet. Therefore, there could be life, traces of which could be preserved through organic molecules.
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