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Organic Matter Found on Mars!

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https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/us/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-findings/index.html

(CNN)Organic matter has been found on Mars in soil samples taken from 3 billion-year-old mudstone in the Gale crater by the Curiosity rover, NASA announced Thursday. The rover has also detected methane in the Martian atmosphere.

The search for life outside Earth focuses on the building blocks of life as we know it, which includes organic compounds and molecules -- although these can exist without life. Organic matter can be one of several things: a record detailing ancient life, a food source for life or something that exists in the place of life.
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That's cool. But organic compounds are everywhere. There are comets that are covered in hydrocarbons. I'm hoping they find fossils or such (of single celled organism). That would be a monumental discovery.
 
How long after they confirm there was ancient life on Mars before everyone turns back to the latest stupid tweet from the potato in chief? Over under? 3 weeks? Days? Hours?
 
Siro said:
That's cool. But organic compounds are everywhere. There are comets that are covered in hydrocarbons. I'm hoping they find fossils or such (of single celled organism). That would be a monumental discovery.
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Yeah, according to the news article I read this was just methane molecules. So interesting, but hardly monumental in my opinion.
 
colton said:
Yeah, according to the news article I read this was just methane molecules. So interesting, but hardly monumental in my opinion.
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No, they say they found organic material in mud (fossilized) and also methane in the atmosphere.
 
Not really a "hot" lead to life on Mars.

imo you need to show CHONS. One molecule with all these elements would be relatively rare in materials remaining from non-living chemistry, but practically required in life as we know it. The stuff they found is abiotic petroleum....
 
The cyclical nature of the methane is very interesting. More in summer, less in winter...
 
Many of the meteorites that fall to Earth, namely the Carbonaceous Chondrites, contain amino acids and carbon compounds. With regard to the new Mars data, they will need to find out what is causing the seasonal spikes in methane, which they did detect. Is it simple life forms, known as methanogens, just beneath the surface? It's intriguing to say the least, and that's what they need to determine...

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/06/methane-and-organics-on-mars
 
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If it turns out to be from an abiotic source, then this is somewhat trivial (or at the very least esoteric). If it is biotic, then it's one of the most important discoveries in human history. Funny how that works.
 
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It's too bad their atmosphere deteriorated because over billions of years evolution would have created nearly identical species based on natural rules. First spherules would form in water... DNA and RNA base pairs would become the same due to chemical reasons, etc. Natural selection would proceed along the exact same path, and now we would be welcoming something between Neanderthal or a human 100,000 years more advanced than us. We would have new neighbors to mate with, kinda like a Chinese visitor. The chromosome numbers would match perfectly and we could mate with Martians with no difference between mating with humans. I read that the soil and sun would turn their skin blueish but I find that pretty hot. What about a black-blue person with mixed colored hair and blue lips? Hot.

It's the offseason and I'm bored.
 
Carbon13 said:
Still, to find organic compounds on Mars is fairly exciting. The Urey-Miller experiment established that the chemical origins of life on earth began with simple molecules like methane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment
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Carbon and Oxygen are logical products of solar fusion processes, suns are unstable in early formation phases and usually(?) undergo explosive events that eject huge amounts of material. Assume hydrogen in excess of C, N, O and you get methane, water, ammonia. Planets form by cohesion of materials, making the inner planets rock/heavier elements and outer planets gas giants. Jupiter is mostly ammonia, Pluto probably mostly methane.... Mars (and the Moon) would be expected to have more magnesium, and titanium, Venus more gold, "rare" earths. Venus atmosphere some heavy gases like SO2, Mars more nitrogen except it appears some fly-by meteor may have brought water from Mars to Earth....

So evolutionary theorists need methane, and CO2; ammonia and nitrates; thiols and sulfur oxides; hydrogen and water. Simple but very necessary carbon compounds like amino acids and purine/pyrimidine rings, oils(CH), fats CHO) essential to hydrophobic membranes which can contain bio-reactive molecules in close association.... lots of stuff like that. A pure environmentalist tries to envision a zero starting point with no plan, just the essential elements or compounds. No doubt life started like that. The contentious point is whether there was some kind of intelligence present with any kind of plan, and any capacity to effect any results..... The possibility of natural (self-existing due to physical principles) efficiencies helping in the direction of life formation is in some minds equivalent to some natural "God". But any kind of "help" would greatly increase the chances for "life" and decrease the statistical improbabilities.

A bit of fossilized DNA inside a bit of "bone" in a Mars rock would practically prove life once existed there. But the more biological molecules you find, the more it looks like it could have been, or is, there.

Annual fluctuations in methane could be related to thermal variations or sunlight on mudstone, but could come from some photosynthesis and decay, algae-lichen-whatever life in some niche. We just have to keep looking.....
 
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