Latest news with #Glavin
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA just made a compelling discovery on Mars
NASA's Curiosity rover made a compelling find on Mars' irradiated surface. The car-sized robot's molecule-sleuthing instrument, called Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, identified the longest-ever-found organic compounds on Mars. They could be fragments of "fatty acids," a building block of earthly life that can compose cell membranes. While the discovery in Martian mudstone isn't nearly definitive proof of past life on Mars — these fatty acids can also be formed via non-biological processes — it does show that such potential evidence can be preserved in Mars' extremely harsh surface environs. It also underscores that NASA's nuclear-powered rovers have done their job — identifying potential evidence of life — and that the samples must now be deeply scrutinized by scientists on Earth. 'We are ready to take the next big step and bring Mars samples home to our labs to settle the debate about life on Mars,' Daniel Glavin, the senior scientist for sample return at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. SEE ALSO: NASA dropped a new report. It's a wake-up call. The debate about Martian life, however, won't be settled anytime soon. NASA's Mars Sample Return mission is in limbo as the space agency seeks out cheaper and simpler ways to transport samples (collected by Curiosity's sibling robot, Perseverance) in sealed, cigar-sized titanium tubes. Plans won't be finalized until 2026, and it's unlikely the samples will be returned to Earth before the mid-2030s. These newly identified chains of organic molecules, which are based on carbon similar to much of life on Earth, certainly add more weight to the scientific merit behind the ambitious sample return endeavor. Such a journey to Mars and back may still cost some $6 to $8 billion. Specifically, the rock samples assessed by the Curiosity rover contain decane, undecane, and dodecane, which are composed of long chains of carbon atoms. The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The drilling target in "Yellowknife Bay" where the Curiosity rover gathered pulverized rock samples perserving the long-chain organic molecules. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS Adding to the samples' intrigue is where they were found. Curiosity drilled the rock from a region in the expansive Gale Crater called "Yellowknife Bay," which is an ancient, dried-up lakebed. On Earth, we know that life thrives in such watery, often nutrient-rich environs. Could it have done so on Mars, too? "There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars,' Glavin, who coauthored the new Mars research, said. What's more, each of the fatty acids detected in the rover's microwave-sized Sample Analysis at Mars instrument is a chain of carbons between 11 to 13 long. "Notably, non-biological processes typically make shorter fatty acids, with less than 12 carbons," NASA noted. This all adds up to a significant amount of scientific intrigue — but no clear answers. Today, Mars is 1,000 times drier than the driest desert on Earth. But amid a warmer, hospitable climate — which hosted expansive lakes, long shorelines, and great Martian oceans — life might have found a way billions of years ago. Hardy Martian life could have also once thrived well beyond the reach of NASA's rovers, deep in the Red Planet's subsurface, protected from radiation and climate extremes. But that's another story waiting to be written by another, future robot.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Is There Life On Mars? According To New Research, There May Have Been
As humans, we are naturally inclined to wonder about whether there is life on other planets. Could it possibly just be us in this entire solar system? Has it always been this way? We have songs like Life On Mars dedicated to it, many films such as The Martian exploring the potentials of space travel and of course, we even have the Curiosity rover out there right now, exploring the planet and reporting back findings. Now, the rover has discovered the largest organic compounds ever seen on Mars, which could indicate that life once existed on the planet billions of years ago. On their website, NASA says: 'Curiosity scientists had previously discovered small, simple organic molecules on Mars, but finding these larger compounds provides the first evidence that organic chemistry advanced toward the kind of complexity required for an origin of life on Mars.' This comes after news that the climate on Mars is more wet and habitable than we previously thought, providing hope for the future of Mars studies. 'There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars,' said Daniel Glavin, senior scientist for sample return at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The samples gathered by Curiosity are ready to come home to be further researched, according to Glavin. There is a limit to how much scientists can infer from the instruments sent to Mars. In a statement he assures: 'We are ready to take the next big step and bring Mars samples home to our labs to settle the debate about life on Mars.' How exciting. Why Is Mars Red? Scientists May Have Just Found The Answer NASA Awards Contract For Nuclear-Powered Rocket That Could Help Humanity Reach Mars 5 Types Of Food Astronauts Avoid Eating In Space — And Why
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Curiosity Mars rover discovers largest organic molecules ever seen on Red Planet
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Scientists have announced the discovery of the largest organic molecules ever found on Mars. These molecules could have come from the breakdown of fatty acids that existed 3.7 billion years ago before being preserved in sediments laid down by an ancient lake on the Red Planet. While molecules don't exactly prove the existence of past life on Mars, scientists say that they show that such a discovery might indeed be possible. "Our study proves that, even today, by analyzing Mars samples we could detect chemical signatures of past life, if it ever existed on Mars," said Caroline Freissinet, an astrochemist from the Laboratoire Atmosphères et Observations Spatiales in Guyancourt, France, in a statement. The molecules are known as alkanes, hydrocarbons that combine chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms attached to them. They were found by NASA's Curiosity rover when it drilled into a sample of mudstone from a rock nicknamed 'Cumberland', in the Yellowknife Bay region of Mars' Gale crater, all the way back in 2013. Curiosity landed in the 96-mile (154-kilometer) Gale crater in 2012. The crater was once flooded by an ancient lake, making it a promising location to search for signs of past habitability, and Yellowknife Bay lies on what was once the lake floor. The Cumberland rock is made from clay-rich sedimentary material laid down by this lake. "There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars," said Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in the statement announcing this discovery. The organic molecules were discovered by Curiosity's Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) suite of instruments. Using this suite, the rover drills a rock sample and scoops it into the SAM, where it is baked in an oven to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). This releases gases from the sample, which are then separated and studied by specialized sensors (in this case, a gas chromatograph and a mass spectrometer) that can identify the elements vital for life — carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. A separate laser spectrometer analyzes the gases, searching for signs of water and smaller organic molecules such as methane. Freissinet and Glavin previously co-led earlier discoveries of organic molecules in the Cumberland sample, including methane as well as chlorine or sulfur-bearing organics, but until this study, the largest organic molecules found on Mars had been only six carbon atoms long. So Freissinet and Glavin modified the SAM procedure to search for larger organic molecules. In particular they and their team were looking for amino acids. They didn't find any, but they did find alkanes larger than any found on Mars thus far. These include decane (10 carbon atoms and 22 hydrogen atoms), undecane (11 carbon atoms and 24 hydrogen atoms) and dodecane (12 carbon atoms and 26 hydrogen atoms). Although dodecane is the largest alkane ever found on Mars, it is still dwarfed in comparison to the largest alkanes on Earth, which can feature over 150 carbon atoms. It's possible that the large Martian alkanes have a geochemical origin — nothing to do with life — but Freissinet and Glavin's team performed laboratory experiments showing that they could have come from the breakdown of fatty acids entombed in the clay-rich sedimentary materials over 3.7 billion years. Life incorporates fatty acids into cell membranes and uses them to regulate various cell and organ processes. However, fatty acids can also be produced by geochemistry, so inferring their existence on Mars 3.7 billion years ago is not necessarily proof of life. However, abiotic fatty acids do tend to be smaller in size than 12 carbon atoms. The timing is also curious — 3.7 billion years ago is also when life is thought to have first started getting a grip on Earth. Could life on both our worlds have developed synchronously? RELATED STORIES: — Curiosity rover: The ultimate guide — Curiosity rover discovers new evidence Mars once had 'right conditions' for life — NASA's Curiosity Mars rover begins exploring possible dried-up Red Planet river For now that remains speculation, but while the presence of long-chain alkanes is not a smoking gun for life on Mars, they could be a big clue. However, Curiosity rover's SAM instruments are unable to detect organic molecules larger than dodecane, meaning that the future of Mars-life research could lie on Earth. "We are ready to take the next big step and bring Mars samples home to our labs to settle the debate about life on Mars," said Glavin, who is NASA's senior scientist for sample return. However, this would depend upon how soon a mission can be launched to retrieve the samples cached by Curiosity's sibling rover, Perseverance. NASA has recently run into difficulties designing and funding a retrieval mission and has solicited help from private companies. The findings were published on March 24 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Curiosity finds largest-ever organic molecules on Mars
The Mars Curiosity rover's onboard mini-lab has helped confirm the existence of the largest organic molecules ever found on the Red Planet. The trio of long-chain compounds preserved in Martian soil are believed to be the remnants of prebiotic components required for life to develop on Earth. Researchers published evidence on March 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which builds on their work that began over a decade ago. In May 2013, Curiosity started drilling into an area known as 'Yellowknife Bay' in the Gale Crater. Scientists were interested in examining the region not for what it is today, but for what it may have been millions of years ago. Yellowknife Bay wasn't a randomly chosen name—the arid and desolate landscape's features still hint at a large, long-evaporated lakebed. Curiosity's soil survey, nicknamed 'Cumberland,' has been analyzed multiple times inside its Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) onboard mini-lab and has yielded a trove of new information about the planet's past. In particular, it is rich in clay minerals that often form in water, and contains sufficient amounts of sulfur to help preserve organic molecules. Cumberland also features nitrates crucial to healthy animal and plant life, as well as methane containing a specific type of carbon associated with biological processes. Most striking, though, was conclusive confirmation that Yellowknife Bay once hosted an ancient lake, further supporting the theory that Mars was once home to life of some kind. Experts have since spent years examining data gleaned from SAM mini-lab analyses. In one recent experiment, a team including Glavin and Caroline Freissinet, an astrobiologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research worked to locate evidence of amino acids inside the Cumberland sample. While they didn't find them that time, something else caught their eye: trace amounts of three carbon-chain molecules known as a decane, undecane, and dodecane. With 10, 11, and 12 carbons respectively, researchers believe these organic compounds may be residual fragments of fatty acids needed for cell membrane formation and other biological functions. These fatty acids aren't always definitive proof of life, however. Geological events like water-mineral interactions in hydrothermal vents can also produce similar molecules. That said, the length of many of the Cumberland soil carbon-chains could suggest otherwise. Depending on the molecule, organic life fatty acids often contain chains of 11-13 carbon atoms, while non-biological fatty acids usually contain 12 or fewer carbons. This means that at least some of the large organic molecules detected by Freissinet's team may have once existed in organic life. What's more, the discovery eases worries that Martian biosignatures couldn't survive tens of millions of years of exposure to destructive oxidation and radiation. 'Our study proves that, even today, by analyzing Mars samples we could detect chemical signatures of past life, if it ever existed on Mars,' Freissinet, who also served as the latest study's lead author, said in a statement. 'There is evidence that liquid water existed in Gale Crater for millions of years and probably much longer, which means there was enough time for life-forming chemistry to happen in these crater-lake environments on Mars,' added Daniel Glavin, study co-author and sample return senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Unfortunately, Freissinet and colleagues can only discover so much using Curiosity's SAM mini-lab. Organic fatty acid chains are often much longer than just 12 carbons, but the rover's equipment isn't designed to detect those. Luckily, NASA is ready and willing to assist in the next chapter of Martian exploration. 'We are ready to take the next big step and bring Mars samples home to our labs to settle the debate about life on Mars,' Glavin said. Glavin, Freissinet, and colleagues may be waiting a while for that next step, however. While NASA has long planned on a Mars Sample Return mission, a ballooning budget and an uncertain future may push the project as far back as 2040.
Saudi Gazette
30-01-2025
- Science
- Saudi Gazette
Asteroid sample reveals ‘building blocks of life are in fact extraterrestrial in origin'
WASHINGTON — Researchers have detected organic compounds and minerals necessary for life in unprecedented samples collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, adding evidence to the idea that asteroids likely delivered the building blocks of life to our planet early in its samples are also providing a window into understanding what kind of chemical and biological processes were already underway as space rocks chaotically ricocheted around during the early days of the solar analyses of the rock and dust samples released within the past year have shown that the asteroid contained water as well as carbon, nitrogen and other organic matter, but the chemical composition of the organic material was largely new research has revealed the asteroid contains many of the chemical building blocks of life, such as amino acids and components found in DNA, said Dr. Daniel P. Glavin, senior scientist for samples return at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.'This is all very exciting because it suggests that asteroids like Bennu once acted like giant chemical factories in space and could have also delivered the raw ingredients for life to Earth and other bodies in our solar system,' said Glavin, lead author of a study on the samples published Wednesday in the journal Nature the authors of a separate paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature uncovered salts and minerals crucial to life, including some never seen in asteroid samples before, within Bennu's rocks — as well as highlighting the role that ancient water played on the results of both papers, shared Wednesday during a NASA press conference, present a 'groundbreaking scientific discovery,' said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.'These two papers together go hand in hand to say that Bennu was a much more interesting and complicated place than we probably gave it credit for even six months ago,' said Dr. Tim McCoy, co-lead author of the Nature study and curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural is a carbon-rich space rock known as a rubble pile asteroid. Scientists believe Bennu was once part of a larger 'parent' asteroid that lost a few pieces due to an impact. Then, those blasted-off pieces coalesced, like a pile of rocky rubble that is weakly held together by sample was collected from Bennu in October 2020 by a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx, or Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. It marked the first time the US sent a spacecraft to briefly land on an asteroid and collect material. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft then dropped off a capsule when it swung by Earth in September 2023, sending it parachuting down into the Utah desert.A team of researchers worked to carefully retrieve the capsule and ensure that the samples inside remained pristine and completely sealed against any of Earth's atmosphere and environment that could contaminate the extraterrestrial rocks and dust and potentially skew any analysis of its were thrilled when they realized that the capsule contained double the expected cache of material, which amounted to about 120 grams, or about the weight of a bar of soap. Samples were divided up and shared with researchers around the and his team detected thousands of organic molecular compounds, including 33 amino acids, in the Bennu samples they studied. Amino acids, or molecules that combine to form proteins, are some of the building blocks of researchers found 14 of the 20 amino acids that are used in biology to build proteins, and 19 non-protein amino acids, many of which are rare or nonexistent in known biology, Glavin team also detected adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — all five of the biological nucleobases, or components that make up the genetic code in DNA and RNA.'These organic molecules have all been found previously in meteorites, but in contrast to meteorites, the Bennu samples are pristine and were protected from heating during atmospheric entry and exposure to terrestrial contamination,' Glavin said. 'So we have a much higher confidence now that these chemical building blocks of life are in fact extraterrestrial in origin and formed in space, and are not contaminants from Earth.'Glavin's team also found compounds rich in nitrogen and ammonia in the samples, suggesting that Bennu was part of a larger asteroid that formed about 4.5 billion years ago in the frigid, distant regions of the solar system. Ammonia is essential for many biological processes, Glavin ice is more stable the farther it is from a heat source, like the sun. The researchers believe that the ammonia-enriched ice melted inside the large parent asteroid body, estimated to be bigger than 62 miles (100 kilometers) in diameter, creating a liquid environment inside the rock that allowed complex organic molecules, such as the amino acids and nucleobases, to form.'Having studied meteorites for 35 years, these record the first half billion years of our solar system history that were wiped out by plate tectonics and volcanism and the water cycle here on Earth,' McCoy said. 'I thought we were going to learn about the earliest geologic history of our solar system. What we ended up finding was a lot of information about the earliest biologic history of our solar system, which is remarkable.'McCoy's team, including 66 researchers across four continents, found the salt and minerals left behind as water on Bennu, or its larger parent asteroid, evaporated. The minerals include sodium phosphates, carbonates, sulfates, chlorides and fluorides, some of which are necessary to the formation of team was surprised to find the mineral trona, also known as sodium carbonate or soda ash, which has never been directly observed in another asteroid or meteorite. On Earth, it is used in cleaning products and glass researchers believe that pockets or veins of water flowed beneath the surface of Bennu's parent asteroid, which was probably similar to a big ball of mud in the early days of the solar system, McCoy said. Cracks and fractures in the asteroid allowed water to evaporate to the surface, leaving behind a concentrated brine, or a 'soup of the elements,' in its concentrated brine, similar to the salty crusts of dry lakebeds on Earth, is where salts and minerals could mingle and create more complex structures, setting the stage for organic compounds to form.'We now know from Bennu that the raw ingredients of life were combining in really interesting and complex ways on Bennu's parent body,' McCoy said. 'We have discovered that next step on a pathway to life. But we don't know how far along that pathway this environment could allow things to progress.'Brines are of interest to planetary scientists because they could be environments that support the formation of life. It's also possible that they exist on other worlds in our solar system, including ocean worlds such as Saturn's icy moon Enceladus — which also contains sodium presence of water, minerals, salts and amino acids suggests it was possible for the building blocks of life to come together in interesting ways on Bennu, but Glavin said more research is required to determine how organic compounds formed and evolved on the space of the minerals have small bits of water trapped in their crystalline structures, so researchers may be able to learn about how the composition of the brine changed over time, which could provide clarity about what took place in the evaporating water, McCoy of the mysteries presented by the samples is a mixture of amino acids have handedness, meaning they can be created in two mirror-image versions, like a pair of hands. On Earth, life produces left-handed amino acids, so Glavin expected to see that reflected in the Bennu samples — but it contains an equal mixture of both, suggesting that amino acids likely began on Earth as both. Now, Glavin and his colleagues wonder why life on Earth 'turned left' rather than combination of material found in the samples suggests chemical building blocks of life were widespread throughout the solar system, providing strong evidence that the asteroids bombarding early Earth may have delivered water and organic material to its surface, Glavin that theory raises the question of whether this life-delivering bombardment ever successfully occurred on any other planet in the solar system, McCoy said. And there is also the puzzle of why life didn't form inside Bennu itself, given that most of the raw ingredients needed were present, Glavin artist's illustration shows the wayward interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua (pronounced oh-MOO-ah-MOO-ah) racing toward the outskirts of our solar system. The object, heated by the Sun (lower right), is venting gaseous material from its surface, as a comet suggest this outgassing is one possible cause for 'Oumuamua's slight acceleration, as detected by several telescopes. The irregularly shaped object is only a half-mile across. It is now farther from the Sun than Jupiter and traveling away at about 70,000 miles per hour. The orbits of the major planets are included for scale. The box-shaped constellation Corvus is in the background near image center, and the bright blue star Spica is at upper left of center, in the constellation Virgo. The stars at bottom left belong to the constellation Hydra. 'Maybe it was because there just wasn't enough time to do the more complex organic chemistry need for life before the salty liquids evaporated in the parent body,' Glavin said. 'Future missions to other bodies in our solar system will be critical to seek the answers about how life began on Earth and our search for life elsewhere.' — CNN
