{"id":190444,"date":"2025-03-25T05:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T19:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/missions\/mars-science-laboratory\/nasas-curiosity-rover-detects-largest-organic-molecules-found-on-mars\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T05:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T19:10:11","slug":"nasas-curiosity-rover-detects-largest-organic-molecules-found-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=190444","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Curiosity Rover Detects Largest Organic Molecules Found on Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers analyzing pulverized rock onboard NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover have found the largest organic compounds on the Red Planet to date. The finding, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests prebiotic chemistry may have advanced further on Mars than previously observed.<\/p>\n

Scientists probed an existing rock sample inside Curiosity\u2019s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) mini-lab and found the molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane. These compounds, which are made up of 10, 11, and 12 carbons, respectively, are thought to be the fragments of fatty acids that were preserved in the sample. Fatty acids are among the organic molecules that on Earth are chemical building blocks of life.<\/p>\n

Living things produce fatty acids to help form cell membranes and perform various other functions. But fatty acids also can be made without life, through chemical reactions triggered by various geological processes, including the interaction of water with minerals in hydrothermal vents.<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s no way to confirm the source of the molecules identified, finding them at all is exciting for Curiosity\u2019s science team for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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This graphic shows the long-chain organic molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane. These are the largest organic molecules discovered on Mars to date. They were detected in a drilled rock sample called \u201cCumberland\u201d that was analyzed by the Sample Analysis at Mars lab inside the belly of NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover. The rover, whose selfie is on the right side of the image, has been exploring Gale Crater since 2012. An image of the Cumberland drill hole is faintly visible in the background of the molecule chains.<\/div>\n
NASA\/Dan Gallagher<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The new study also increases the chances that large organic molecules that can be made only in the presence of life, known as \u201cbiosignatures,\u201d could be preserved on Mars, allaying concerns that such compounds get destroyed after tens of millions of years of exposure to intense radiation and oxidation.<\/p>\n

This finding bodes well for plans to bring samples from Mars to Earth<\/a> to analyze them with the most sophisticated instruments available here, the scientists say.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study proves that, even today, by analyzing Mars samples we could detect chemical signatures of past life, if it ever existed on Mars,\u201d said Caroline Freissinet<\/a>, the lead study author and research scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in the Laboratory for Atmospheres and Space Observations in Guyancourt, France<\/p>\n

In 2015, Freissinet co-led a team that, in a first, conclusively identified Martian organic molecules<\/a> in the same sample that was used for the current study. Nicknamed \u201cCumberland,\u201d the sample has been analyzed many times with SAM using different techniques.<\/p>\n

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NASA\u2019s Curiosity rover drilled into this rock target, \u201cCumberland,\u201d during the 279th Martian day, or sol, of the rover\u2019s work on Mars (May 19, 2013) and collected a powdered sample of material from the rock\u2019s interior. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager camera on the rover\u2019s arm to capture this view of the hole in Cumberland on the same sol as the hole was drilled. The diameter of the hole is about 0.6 inches. The depth of the hole is about 2.6 inches.<\/div>\n
NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Curiosity drilled the Cumberland sample<\/a> in May 2013 from an area in Mars\u2019 Gale Crater called \u201cYellowknife Bay.\u201d Scientists were so intrigued by Yellowknife Bay, which looked like an ancient lakebed, they sent the rover there before heading in the opposite direction to its primary destination of Mount Sharp, which rises from the floor of the crater.<\/p>\n

The detour was worth it: Cumberland turns out to be jam-packed with tantalizing chemical clues to Gale Crater\u2019s 3.7-billion-year past. Scientists have previously found the sample to be rich in clay minerals, which form in water. It has abundant sulfur, which can help preserve organic molecules. Cumberland also has lots of nitrates, which on Earth are essential to the health of plants and animals, and methane made with a type of carbon that on Earth is associated with biological processes.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most important, scientists determined that Yellowknife Bay was indeed the site of an ancient lake, providing an environment that could concentrate organic molecules and preserve them in fine-grained sedimentary rock called mudstone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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,\u201d said Daniel Glavin<\/a>, senior scientist for sample return at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a study co-author.<\/p>\n

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