Curiosity rover measures ingredients of life on Mars for the first time, reveals NASA

NASA's astrobiologists have made a significant leap in hunting signs of ancient life on Mars by measuring organic carbon in rocks drilled by the Curiosity rover on Mars. Organic carbon is carbon bound to a hydrogen atom and is considered a key component in the molecules of life. The rover's mission team revealed that Curiosity drilled samples from 3.5 billion-year-old mudstone rocks in the “Yellowknife Bay” formation of Gale Crater, which were analysed later. 

"We found at least 200 to 273 parts per million of organic carbon", Jennifer Stern of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said in a report. "This is comparable to or even more than the amount found in rocks in very low-life places on Earth, such as parts of the Atacama Desert in South America, and more than has been detected in Mars meteorites". The scientists clarified, however, that this does not confirm the presence of life on Mars since the organic carbon can also come from meteorites, volcanoes, or be formed in place by surface reactions. 

 (The “Yellowknife Bay” photographed using Curiosity rover's left Navigation Camera; Image: NASA)

What does the organic carbon presence mean?

After many years of investigation, scientists have found evidence that unlike now, Mars once had a climate that was more Earth-like as there used to be a thick atmosphere and flowing rivers. Due to this, experts think that Martian life, if it ever evolved, must have used key ingredients such as organic carbon for its evolution. In a report by the mission team, they explained how they measured the organic carbon with instruments onboard the rover. 

Curiosity delivered the samples to its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, where an oven heated the powdered rock to progressively higher temperatures. This experiment used oxygen and heat to convert the organic carbon to carbon dioxide (CO2), the amount of which is measured to get the amount of organic carbon in the rocks.

The site where Curiosity carried out its recent excavation has mudstone, which formed from the physical and chemical weathering of volcanic rocks that once settled inside a lake. 

In addition to this, chemical energy sources, low acidity, and other elements essential for biology, such as oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur were other crucial life-supporting conditions that once existed in the Gale crater. “Basically, this location would have offered a habitable environment for life, if it ever was present", Stern said in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.