Data from NASA's Perseverance rover has revealed important new discoveries on Mars during its expeditions. Material collected in the Jezero crater showed the presence of organic molecules on the red planet.
Now, the researchers are going to analyze the samples to see if the materials are of “biotic” origin. They will seek to find out more information about the presence of life on mars in the past and the carbon cycle on the planet.
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At first, they also do not rule out the possibility that organic matter formed due to the interaction between interplanetary dust, meteors and other sources.
The publication on the materials found by the space exploration vehicle was made available on the scientific portal Nature. The study was authored by Sunanda Sharma, Ashley E. Murphy and other NASA researchers.
The trajectory and discoveries of the Perseverance rover
O exploration vehicle reached the planet Mars in 2021. Since then, the rover has used different instruments to record and collect images or samples of the planet.
One of the most important instruments is the Sherloc (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals). Through this mechanism, scientists are able to map organic and mineral molecules.
Therefore, the Mars exploration team has been analyzing the geological composition and materials of the craters.
Since its arrival, the rover has already found other evidence of organic molecules and important materials for studies on the geological history of the red planet.
On one of the recent expeditions, Perseverance found 10 targets in Jezero crater, which contained different mineral associations, mainly in the Máaz and Séítah rock structures.
What NASA Scientists Say
According to one of the scientists, Ashley E. Murphy, “Not all organics are organically sourced. Observing the spatial relationships between minerals and organics is necessary to assess organic origins and possible biosignatures.”
For this reason, so far, researchers believe that there is an important diversity of aromatic molecules on the surface of Mars.
In addition, the article reinforces that these “potential organic molecules” are widely found in minerals linked to aqueous processes, indicating that these processes may have played a key role in the synthesis, transport, or preservation organic.
However, researchers agree that even if the samples are not of “biotic” origin, the discovery brought important advances to studies of the past of life on Mars.
