NASA looking for life on Mars

  NASA exploration of Mars continues    

While Mars seems to be a promising nearby place to search for life beyond Earth, the Red Planet has held on stubbornly to its secrets. Despite decades of investigation, and even two initially exciting results, sure signs of life have yet to emerge. And those past exciting results, though now considered to have fallen short of proving life ever thrived on our neighbouring planet, are seen as an essential foundation to the focused, multi-layered search that is underway. Now this long search could be on the cusp of bearing fruit. The Perseverance rover has been scouring an ancient Martian crater, once filled with water, for evidence of past life, and caching samples of rock and surface material in metal tubes for eventual return to Earth. “Previous missions have helped us understand better how to search for life,” said Lindsay Hays, deputy program scientist for the Astrobiology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, and the deputy lead scientist for the Mars Sample Return mission. The in-depth exploration of Mars also will serve as a proving ground for the broader search to come, surveying ice-covered moons in the outer solar system for some sign of life in the vast oceans hidden beneath their surfaces.

One of the most significant discoveries made on Mars is the presence of water. The Mars Exploration Rover mission detected signs of past water activity on the planet's surface, such as ancient riverbeds, minerals that can only form in the presence of water, and ice caps at the planet's poles. Three papers by NASA researchers report that liquid water has been found on Mars’s surface. This finding could lead to a revolutionary method for studying Mars and looking for life on the planet. This unprecedented finding was made on 12 August, 2024, based on materials obtained from the Mars Insight Lander spacecraft, launched in 2018. From the seismic wave data, it was found that subsurface water is present. The procedures scientists used resembled a search for water sources on Earth. These water sources are situated at depths between 10 and 20 kilometres deep. This discovery offers concrete data supporting the historical hypothesis about the disappearance of water on Mars’s surface.

Seismic activity recorded by the InSight lander during its four years on the red planet included more than 1,300 ‘Marsquakes’, which aided the researchers in understanding the Martian interior structure and composition. It is a significant scientific breakthrough in research on Mars that offers new data about its ability to sustain life and geological activities. Liquid water in any state has fascinated researchers as they looked for evidence of liquid water on Mars. It means that the volume of water estimated here could cover the Mars surface to more than half a kilometre in depth if it were to spread out. It essentially means that this discovery is significant progress in understanding Mars’s geology and the planet’s current state. Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulphur, a first on the Red Planet. Scientists were stunned on 30 May, when a rock that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulphur crystals.

Well-water springs unlock the opportunity to dwell beneath the soil. The deep biosphere of Earth helps explain the possibility of microbial life on Mars. There is a hypothesis that chemosynthetic microbes can exist deep in Martian rocks. They note that the recent discovery of methane plumes on Mars may suggest the existence of life forms. Scholars are now discussing how to continue the study of these water reservoirs. Dr Vashan Wright of the University of California, San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography research team involves more than 1,300 Marsquakes recorded by the Insight lander. These discoveries indicate that such water reservoirs are not rare but could exist worldwide and occupy a substantial underground ocean that has evaded saturation mapping for Billions of years.

Despite the severe conditions on the surface of Mars, subsurface areas could be more conducive for life. This discovery once again brings back the concept of planetary habitability and that of extra-terrestrial life within the solar system. To support the idea of extremophiles living in these deep aquifers, the authors paired the concept to similar biospheres on Earth which have microbial life located in deep waters and underground devoid of sunlight or organic carbon because they derive theirs from rocks and minerals. Getting to deep Martian water is not a piece of cake in terms of technology. However, it is impossible to penetrate Mars and travel 10-20 kilometres beneath the red planet’s surface. Maybe there is another way to get there, through mud volcanoes. The Mars Sample Return mission might be helpful. Other methane plumes might give researchers the indirect evidence they need for further research.

NASA's Perseverance rover discovered “leopard spots” on a reddish rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” in Mars' Jezero Crater in July 2024. Scientists think the spots may indicate that, billions of years ago, the chemical reactions in this rock could have supported microbial life; other explanations are being considered. Researchers are still exploring other geophysical instruments, including ground-penetrating radar and other remote sensing technology, that may provide a better definition of these subsurface water resources. They can use this information to pinpoint the areas with the highest potential for mission and exploration. Strategic objectives may include calls for strategic long-term goals like improved drilling methods. The search for Martians might continue for several decades or centuries if more astro biological missions were conducted or if newer, better technology was developed.

Thus, discovering liquid water deposits beneath the Martian surface significantly advances space exploration. This discovery not only changes the concept of Mars’s geology but also significantly contributes to the presence or absence of microbial life on our planet Mars. Continuing the mission of searching for new Martian areas to inhabit, the comparisons are once again referring to the Earth’s deep hot biosphere inhabited by tough microorganisms. Future tasks will remain challenging and novel, requiring new concepts and approaches to study these subterranean environments. Mars is also home to the tallest and largest volcano in the solar system: Olympus Mons, which rises two and a half times as high as Mount Everest at 13.6 miles. The most precise measurement of the volcano's dimensions so far comes from the Mars Global Surveyor in 2004. Still, this finding has initiated a new search for Mars, which refers to scientific curiosity and the public’s imagination. It is the type of question that is on the brink of being answered with the help of science, bringing people closer to the potential discovery of extra-terrestrial life on Mars.