Discovery of organic compounds.

The Perseverance rover, a creation of NASA, recently found indications of organic compounds in rocks from Jezero Crater. Unfortunately this is not enough to say that there is some kind of "life" in this discovery, as a variation in the phenomena geological has the ability to facilitate chemistry in relation to carbon. Understand.

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Through these compounds, it is possible to find out more about the waters of the planet Mars and whether or not there could be some kind of life on the planet. The compounds found show evidence of aquatic processes, which can generate organic chemistry. It is also possible to find small amounts of carbon compounds, according to the analyzes carried out so far. See a little more about this episode.

Discovery of organic compounds

Centuries ago, the Jezero crater was a much wetter environment than it is today, however it is still possible to find some traces of the ancient river that existed there. The mixing of water and crater rocks can result in organic compounds.

Scientists used to believe that most rocks were sedimentary, but that may not be the case. Thanks to the Perseverance images, they were able to verify that the bottom of the crater was volcanic. The team of scientists involved in this episode conducted a probe of igneous rocks using Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC), instrument present on the rover.

Through this survey, the team of scientists identified that the constant contact of the rocks with the water would have alternated their state. Two types of alteration were found during the survey. Both lead scientists to deduce that these changes happened in different environments and at different times.

What are the types of changes found?

The first change is with liquid water, which gave rise to carbonates in igneous rocks about 3.8 to 2.7 billion years ago. The second concerns the salt water that produced about 2.6 to 2.3 billion years ago, in contact with rocks, sulphate-perchlorate mixtures.

“Collectively,youdatashow that samples collected by Perseverance from the bottom of Jezero Crater likely contain evidence of carbonation and formation of sulfates and perchlorates”, wrote the scientists in their article.

Perseverance also sampled the rocks in case there was ever a mission back to Earth.

“I hope one day these samples can be returned àEarth for what we canobserveto the evidence of water and possible organic matter and explore whether to theconditions were suitable for Thelifeat thebeginning of history from Mars“, said geochemist Mark Sephton.

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