While rovers like Perseverance and Curiosity explore the Martian surface, looking for traces of ancient life, new evidence has shown there may be a need to dig much deeper to search for them.
As specified in a ScienceAlert report, the quest for life on the Red Planet may have just gotten "a whole lot more complicated."
Any evidence of amino acids left over from a time when the Red Planet may have been habitable is possibly buried at least 6.6 feet below the ground.
That is because the Martian planet, with its lack of magnetic field and flimsy atmosphere, is subject to an extremely higher dose of cosmic radiation on its surface than Earth. This is common knowledge, and it's also known that cosmic radiation destroys amino acids.
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: In this handout image provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, and captured by NASA's Curiosity rover, a rock outcrop called Link pops out from a Martian surface that is elsewhere blanketed by reddish-brown dust, showing evidence of an ancient, flowing stream.
Amino Acids Destroyed by Cosmic Rays
Now, because of experimental data, it is known that this process occurs on very brief timescales in terms of geology.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center physicist Alexander Pavlov's results propose that "cosmic rays destroy amino acids in the Martian surface rocks and regolith at much quicker rates than previously perceived.
Present missions of the Mars rover drill down to roughly five centimeters. Pavlov explained that it would take just 20 million years to destroy amino acids at those depths.
The addition of water and perchlorates increases the rate of amino acid destruction even more extensively.
Cosmic Radiation
Essentially, radiation is, in fact, a major concern for Mars exploration. An average human on Earth is exposed to "0.33 millisieverts of cosmic radiation" each year, a similar Emourly report specified. On the Red Planet, the yearly exposure could be more than 250 millisieverts.
Mars Has So Much Radiation, Any Signs of Life Would Be Buried Six Feet Under https://t.co/U8IWTrPCf8
— Emourly (@JosButl35402166) June 28, 2022
This high-energy radiation that streams from solar flares and energetic occurrences like supernovae can infiltrate rocks, ionizing and destroying any organic molecules it experiences.
In the past, the Red Planet is believed to have had a global magnetic field and a much thicker atmosphere similar to Earth. In addition, there is a lot of evidence that liquid water once sat on the surface of Mars in the form of rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Such a combination of features proposes that the Red Planet could have been habitable, probably, repeatedly, in its past.
Amino Acids as Proof of Mars' Habitability
As specified in the study published in Astrobiology, one sign that could point to the habitability of the Red Planet is the presence of amino acids. These organic compounds are not biosignatures, although they are among the most basic blocks of life.
Given that the Martian surface has not been hospitable to life as it's been known for much longer than that, billions of years, instead of millions, the few centimeters that Perseverance and Curiosity can dig down to is not likely to pony up amino acids.
Moreover, other evidence suggests that the researchers might be onto something. Now and again, material from underneath the surface of Mars does make its way to this planet. In fact, amino acids have even been discovered therein.
Related information about the signs of life on Mars is shown on TheSimplySpace's YouTube video below:
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Check out more news and information on Mars in Science Times.
