Curiosity has confirmed that life can exist on Mars

Just 200 days after its main mission, NASA's Curiosity rover confirmed that Mars could be inhabited by life. Now we know that once Mars was very similar to Earth and, possibly, contains ancient bacteria.

This is new data on the results of the first drilling of Curiosity , which occurred in early February. Curiosity has gone deep into a rock called John Klein, it is flat and wiry, just like the stones in the river beds here on Earth. The pounded sample was then placed in the CheMin and SAM on-board laboratories, which are a combined set of spectrometers and provide very detailed information on the atomic composition of the Martian rock and soil. Today, at a press conference, NASA shared the results of this analysis, and they very convincingly prove that conditions on Mars once favored the genesis and maintenance of life.


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To be precise, the results show that Yellowknife Bay, the current location of Curiosity, was once filled with clear river water coming down from the Gale crater. Curiosity has found nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, phosphorus, carbon, and hydrogen — the key ingredients for living here on Earth — in a sample of the rock John Klein. “The spectrum of chemical ingredients that we found in the sample is impressive and suggests compounds such as sulphates and sulphides, which indicates a possible source of chemical energy for micro-organisms,” says Paul Mahaffy, the head of the SAM group.

These results are particularly interesting in that they paint a picture of a moist environment that was surprisingly soft. Unlike other parts of Mars, it seems Yellowknife Bay was not too salty, acidic or oxidizing - just right for the birth of life.


A reservoir in Australia, which, according to NASA, is very similar to Yellowknife Bay on Mars

In short - apparently, once the surface of Mars was very similar to the Earth. Just think about it. (See also: Another Blue Planet: What Mars could look like Billions of years ago .)

The main question now, of course, was there ever life on Mars, and if so, can it still exist under its surface? Here, on Earth, it was repeatedly proved that life finds a way to survive in the most severe conditions. If the conditions for abiogenesis (spontaneous emergence of life from inorganic matter) on Earth and on Mars were the same, then where is the guarantee that the same ultra-hardy microbes do not develop, and are not in the crust of Mars for billions of years? In order to find the answer to both these questions, Curiosity or another rover must go deeper into Mars and find the fossils or the living organisms themselves.


The Opportunity rover was only equipped with a rock abrasion device (left), while Curiosity can drill neat holes with a hammer drill.

Continuing its research, Curiosity will be in Yellowknife Bay for many weeks, testing more images to confirm the findings presented today. NASA is also concerned about the problem with the main onboard computer Curiosity, which detected errors in the memory and should be replaced by a spare fault-tolerant computer . The last few weeks have been spent on bringing the Curiosity systems back to normal and trying to fix the main computer.