Is This New Evidence f or Ancient Life on Mars?
MARS the Red planet always has grabbed our attention and Life
on Mars is the most, hot subject in the space science and the news out on
Feb.27 is just like the fuel in the fire. The studies of the Martian meteorite
, known as yamato 000593 (Y000593), has revealed signs of past liquid water
activity as well as possible evidence of actual biological processes.
From the press release: “ The Research team reports that the
newly discovered different structures and composition features within the
larger Yamato meteorite suggest biological processes might have been at work on
Mars hundreds of millions of years ago.”
Recalling the
discovery of putative fossilized bacteria in the Allen Hills 84001 (ALH84001)
Martian meteorite back in 1996. Those results are still considered inconclusive
and dismissed by many scientists in the years since then. However, the research
team, led by David McKay, Everett Gibson, and Kathie Thomas-Keprta, continues
to stand by those findings. Those results were published in the journal
Science.
The newly discoveries, made by the same team, offer some more
astonishing clues to possible biological activity on Mars way back in past. Water
on any planet makes the planet more interesting to study so as mars did.
Though the fact that Mars had a lot of
water on its surface has become dull old news, but the other features found,
however, are something else entirely.
Scanning the
electron microscope image from inside the Martian meteorite Yamato 000593 (Y000593), which shows tiny spheres
composed of carbon (like those in red
circle). Other material (like that in blue circle) lacks carbon. Image Credit:
NASA
Deep within the 3.7-kilogram (30-pound) meteorite, the
researchers found tiny tunnels and micro-tunnels which look very much like
similar tunnels formed in rocks by bacteria on Earth. The tunnels thread their
way throughout the meteorite; their curving and undulating shapes are
strikingly similar to bio-alteration textures observed in terrestrial basaltic
glasses on Earth, which are created by the interactions of bacteria with
basaltic materials.
As well as the tunnels, there are also nanometer-to-micrometer-sized spherules which
are highly carbon-enriched, much more so than any of the surrounding layers of
Iddingsite in the meteorite. Both of these features are similar to ones seen in
another Martian meteorite, Nakhla, which fell in Egypt in 1911.
The meteorite was discovered on the Yamato Glacier in
Antarctica in 2000 by the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition.
“This is no smoking gun,” said the study’s lead author,
Lauren White. “We can never eliminate the possibility of contamination in any
meteorite. But these features are nonetheless interesting and show that further
studies of these meteorites should continue.”
