A NASA scientist believes that life on Mars, if it exists at all, will be found deep underground and, most likely, in isolated pockets. And it will likely be microbial as well. Because, he notes, what is known about the inhospitable surface of the Red Planet and what is known about microbial life existing at great depths here on Earth could point to where exploratory missions in the future should look to find life on Mars.
CNN reported July 15 that Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona and the principal investigator for NASA’s HiRISE high-resolution camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, finds that life on Mars just might be discovered in the near future. He doesn’t hold out for much more than primitive micro-organisms, though — something resembling Earth bacteria. But he sees no reason to believe that it might not exist, given that there are plenty examples of life deep inside the Earth’s own crustal layers.
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Life found deep inside the Earth has adapted to the increased pressures and unusual living conditions (such as lack of oxygen) at such depths. Known as extremophiles, the organisms can be be found deep underground all over the planet. As explained at the National Ocean Services website , kindred organisms live in deadly (for humans) areas around the globe, like around highly sulfurous “black smoker” hydrothermal vents. The micro-organisms can also be found in arsenic pools and in excruciatingly cold sublayers of Antarctic ice.
McEwen thinks that if life on Mars is to be found, it will exist alongside deposits of water. “Life subsists deep underground on Earth, and on Mars, if you go a kilometer deep, there are surely still pockets of water,” he points out.
McEwen goes on to explain how alien life might exist on Mars:
“Given the complexity of planetary crusts, the evidence for geologically recent water raised to the surface, and the geothermal gradient that should be warm enough for water, if life ever existed on Mars, why wouldn’t it persist in at least isolated pockets underground? That’s what I think is likely to exist on Mars in terms of life today. I still don’t think it’s habitable right at [the] surface, given the radiation and that the water is transient and very salty.”
The NASA scientist isn’t just firing off speculative musings. Alfred McEwen was at the forefront of the search for the existence of water on Mars and was on the NASA team that discovered water on the Red Planet’s surface for the first time. In fact, he was on the team that first detected and identified those long, dark, shadow-like striations that appeared, varied in length over time, and would disappear on the sides of elevated Martian terrain. Called Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL), they helped confirm water due to the hydrated salt deposits left in the wake of the seasonal surface water. Scientists are still searching for the source of the water, whether it be subsurface emissions or from water pulled from the atmosphere to bond with the salt present on the surface.
“But what’s the origin of these RSL?” McEwen asks. “They start at the top of isolated peaks and ridges. It could be subsurface water that seeps out as water vapor and that water is then trapped by the hydrated salts. Maybe that is a clue as to where this life or water is.”
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And since life as we know it exists only with the presence of water, an overriding factor in the search for extraterrestrial life (the parameters of habitability zones, whether or not it can be detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets, and so on), it stands to reason the two should be linked in the search for alien life on Mars as well.
But there are other ways to detect alien life on Mars. Back in March, as reported by Inquisitr , the European Space Agency launched the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter from Kazakhstan. The space probe will deploy equipment designed to detect traces of methane gas in Mars’ thin atmosphere. Methane is a known by-product of both living and long-dead life forms and could be an indicator of life on the Red Planet.
As for its own search for alien life, NASA announced this week that it was pushing to put another Mars rover on the planet’s surface by early 2021, according to Fox News . This rover, which resembles the Mars Curiosity rover in its overall dimensions, will be capable of searching out alien life by taking core samples of the Red Planet, which it will also be able to prepare, secure against the Martian elements, and drop off in caches as it makes its way across the surface. NASA has plans to someday retrieve the prepared samples for a return to Earth for proper analysis. It is a process that could, one day in the not too distant future, answer the question of whether or not there is life on Mars, thus also answering whether or not alien life forms exist (or once existed, if fossils are revealed).
[Image via Shutterstock]
