A glass was found in the craters of Mars that could capture ancient microorganisms.

The researchers found on Mars signs that the impact craters from meteorites contain glass formed from sand under high pressure and temperature. Such glass, as has already been proven in studies on the surface of the Earth, is capable of retaining the microscopic life forms that existed at the time of the fall of the meteorite.

The presence of water on Mars has already been proven by science . There are also channels of dry rivers, and caps from water ice (on which carbon dioxide periodically freezes). But the evidence of the existence of life on the red planet, we still can not find. Only indirect evidence, such as the presence of favorable conditions or the presence of a local hydrocarbon . Is that there will settle those bacteria that brought with him Curiosity .
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Now on the planet of life it may not be at all, but it could be earlier - when there was more water, for example. Planetologist Peter Schulz, who recently explained the presence of turbulence on the moon , made the assumption that nothing on Mars prevented the formation of the same glass that was found in Earth's craters. And if so, then it is in it that, like flies in amber, ancient Martian bacteria can be stored, or at least traces of microorganisms.

Scientists from Brown University, inspired by this assumption, began an active search for glass on Mars - and before them no one had yet succeeded. A careful spectral analysis of the light reflected from the surface areas helped them find several craters where the glass was formed. The work was led by Kevin Canon, a university student. He was assisted by Professor Jack Musted.

“Glass formations do not produce particularly prominent spectrograms, so they are usually muffled by the spectrum of minerals that are on them,” says Musted. “But Kevin came up with a way to get the signal out of the noise.”

Scientists in the laboratory “baked” glass similar in composition, found out what kind of spectrogram it should have, and transferred this data to an algorithm specially designed for disassembling spectra obtained by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument, which is on board the orbital station Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter .

This technique allowed to detect traces of glass, formed as a result of meteoric impacts, in several craters of Mars. One of the craters is Hargraves, located in the basin of Nili Fossae , stretching for 600 km along the surface of the planet. It will be just one of the possible places where the next Mars rover from NASA, whose mission is scheduled for 2020, will land. This rover will have to extract soil samples, which scientists plan to deliver back to Earth.