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NASA Mars Rover Finds Organic Matter in Ancient Lake Bed (theguardian.com)
NASA's veteran Curiosity rover has found complex organic matter buried and preserved in ancient sediments that formed a vast lake bed on Mars more than 3bn years ago. From a report: The discovery is the most compelling evidence yet that long before the planet became the parched world it is today, Martian lakes were a rich soup of carbon-based compounds that are necessary for life, at least as we know it. Researchers cannot tell how the organic material formed and so leave open the crucial question: are the compounds remnants of past organisms; the product of chemical reactions with rocks; or were they brought to Mars in comets or other falling debris that slammed into the surface? All look the same in the tests performed. But whatever the ultimate source of the material, if microbial life did find a foothold on Mars, the presence of organics meant it would not have gone hungry. "We know that on Earth microorganisms eat all sorts of organics. It's a valuable food source for them," said Jennifer Eigenbrode, a biogeochemist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The Curiosity rover also discovered that methane on the red planet changes with the seasons. The Verge: Where the methane is coming from is still a mystery, but scientists have some ideas, including that microbes may be the source of the gas. Researchers at NASA and other US universities analyzed five years' worth of methane measurements Curiosity took at Gale Crater, where the rover landed in 2012. Curiosity detected background levels of methane of about 0.4 parts per billion, which is a tiny amount. (In comparison, Earth's atmosphere has about 1,800 parts per billion of methane.) Those levels of methane, however, were found to range from 0.2 to about 0.7 parts per billion, with concentrations peaking near the end of the summer in the northern hemisphere, according to a study published today in Science. This seasonal cycle repeated through time and could come from an underground reservoir of methane, the study says. Whether that reservoir is a sign that there is or was life on Mars, however, is impossible to say for now.
... of complex life on Mars. Of the sort that screams: "The great filter is still ahead of you guys and it's coming for you too!"
Ooooh, creeeepy. That would have me scared.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I hope I'm alive when we discover life on another plant - even if it's just microbes.
Neat!
There's also CO2 in the atmosphere and iron oxide in the ground. Yipee.
The discovery of organic matter on Mars is such a monumental milestone of the human race. Knowing that there were other organisms, regardless of whether they originated here or there, or whether life here may even have originated there, or there and then came here and after all these years goes back there, is akin to knowing the mind of God. The discovery of organic matter in the fossils on Mars is something that I will be able to tell my kids and my kids' kids about where I was at the time. Well done my scientist friends.
Are you referencing the riddle of steel? Steel is weak, boy! Flesh is stronger. -TD
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It turns out science was a liberal hoax that didn't align with Republican talking points, so they cancelled it. Scott Pruitt will open a Chick-Fil-a instead and call it the extent of human scientific knowledge. Problem solved.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have expensive furniture to buy on the taxpayer dole.
Are there the remains of a red Tesla roadster scattered around the area?
He has built-in camouflage.
There are actually several potential candidates in our solar system alone and many hundreds we haven't even named yet. Bobby your survival isn't important to our species, you're a moron.
This is an important find, and so far as I'm concerned totally validates the effort that's gone into exploring Mars up to this point, but frankly I was hoping they were going to announce they'd found actual lifeforms, or solid evidence lifeforms once existed there. This is a big step towards that but there's too much wiggle-room to conclude Mars has or once had life of any kind on it. More work to do yet I guess! Progress is progress though.
some microbes with them and they are starting to take root.
"Organic," in chemistry terms, is the study of all the fun things Carbon does.
"Organic," in the minds of many, means "non-GMO farming."
As you can see, there is a lot of difference in the scope and implications of those two categories.
And "organic" in the original sense of the word, "relating to or derived from living matter."
(cf: https://dictionary.cambridge.o...)
I think that this is the confusion here. "Organic" molecules, originally, meant molecules which were derived from living matter. But after 1828, when Friedrich Wöhler first synthesized Urea (an organic molecule), it was realized that the carbon molecules labelled "organic" could also be created by non-biological means. The word continues to have both meanings, chemists using it to mean molecules containing carbon, and non-chemists using it to mean molecules derived from living organisms (and, more recently, foods grown without technological intervention.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Life On Mars never gets old.
Finding God in a Dog
organic matter = carbon, not proof of life at all as carbon and methane are all over without life too
nothing to see here - move along
Isn't the universe full of literally every naturally occurring element? Is it really surprising to find any # of organic compounds, anywhere?
Direct links to the two papers since our eminent editors can't seem to be bothered to do their job.
Organic matter preserved in 3-billion-year-old mudstones at Gale crater, Mars
Background levels of methane in Marsâ(TM) atmosphere show strong seasonal variations
Posting anonymously to not karma whore.
Rover found genetic material, methane in sedimentary material.
Sounds like the sewer outside the average slashdotter's house!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Bill offers nothing but his owl self-licked asshole smearing his craven self-important ideology into sectors he knows nothing about, like science and mathematics and law, most other things he blathers about fecklessly. (Cunt.)
They found what's left of Matt Damon's potato garden
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It must be too much to expect /. to actually get into the specifics of what was measured, since that would be far, far too "technical" and above the heads of 99.9% of /. readers. Martian methane isn't news. Other organic compounds isn't news. So, the stupid (literally) post failed to state what the news actually was. Epic fail. I guess I need to go elsewhere to get content worth reading.
From TFA:
When the samples reached 500 to 820C, the rover’s instruments detected a range of so-called aromatic, aliphatic and thiophenic vapours. The science team believes these are breakdown products of even larger organic molecules, similar to those found in coal, which were trapped in the Martian rocks in the distant past.
Clearly we need to create a permanent base of Mars to stake our claim to Martian coal!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I just needed somewhere REALLY private to jack it.
"When the samples [were heated to] 500 to 820C, the rover’s instruments detected a range of so-called aromatic, aliphatic and thiophenic vapours. The science team believes these are breakdown products of even larger organic molecules, similar to those found in coal, which were trapped in the Martian rocks in the distant past."
Article also mentions sample was from "mere centimeters" under surface. For decades there was debate about the origin of coal and oil (petroleum) on Earth. One camp said it (or a large fraction of it) was primogenic, from the methane captured and trapped as the Earth formed. While the other camp said it was only from biological processes. So, just as on Earth, they won't be able to differentiate between biological petrochemicals and abiological petrochemicals. That is, not with the equipment that is currently available there.
You spell life CHONSP. Those elements are thought to be necessary (not necessarily sufficient) for life. We already knew that Cl, and S and C and H and O (and N) were present. Where's the CHON compounds. Proteins, DNA, RNA, all have N present. Any article that describes Mars ancient oceans as a "soup" signals an enormous bias. It was (thought to be) a brine, not (necessarily) a soup.
Perhaps the next thing, is to send up molecular biology analysis equipment like a DNA sequencer with all of the appropriate sample prep.
This seems like a perfect application for "shotgun sequencing" to digitally reconstruct the organisms, assuming that other simpler detection methods check out for amino acids, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_sequencing
Perhaps the next thing, is to send up molecular biology analysis equipment like a DNA sequencer with all of the appropriate sample prep.
This seems like a perfect application for "shotgun sequencing" to digitally reconstruct the organisms, assuming that other simpler detection methods check out for amino acids, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
At the very least It's great to see our martian friends don't like using pesticides on their matter either. Good for them!
Chemists know what organic compound means (somewhat), but to a significant percentage of the population organic means "natural". Heck even chemists can't agree on a definition of "organic compound". Maybe "carbon" would have been more specific and therefore more clear, if that's what is meant.
Of course, a certain percentage of Slashdot readers would think "carbon" means "omg Martians were burning fossil fuels and destroyed their planet by global warming", but I guess no wording is completely idiot proof.
they discovered organic mater ... next step a drilling rig.
We all remember NASA's best announcement of findings on Mars: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap0...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I spoke to a biochemist from my work about the limits of detection for complex molecules, and me mentioned that you need something like a mass spectrometer to detect mass, and a gas chromatography to detect structure. I just read that curiosity rover has this, but am unsure of it's limitations.
What are the limits to detection in terms of molecule complexity? Any how can you unambiguously tell that they were generated from life?
Could polarimetry be used to detect handedness? I've read that over time, most living things on earth have a right-handed optical activity, but over time it becomes more random as a living thing decays. If you took coal, would the optical activity be 50%50% for right and left handedness?
Thank you. The summary was useless and so were the links.The primary question is what organic matter? Which compounds? Your link answers the main question.
It's a cool discovery but shouldn't be surprising. The planet DID have water on it long ago. And still does albeit in not as large amounts and mostly frozen.
So it wasn't Hawaii spewing out all those CFC's, they just spontaneously formed up in the atmosphere by themselves.