When the Mars Perseverance rover landed on the planet in February, it astonished the world with detailed photos of the planet and audio of the surface. After discovering water and ice on Mars, the next endeavor starting the search for evidence of possible life and life-supporting properties on the planet. A new study conducted by the Astrobiology Journal concluded that there is indeed the right amount of ingredients to support microbial life. The study looked at the planet’s Martian meteorites and their chemical makeup. Observing the chemical reaction whenever these meteorites had continuous constant contact with water once the meteorites fell back to Earth.
Among the many reactions studied, Radiolysis was of massive interest. The reaction is created when radioactive elements like potassium uranium and thorium could be converted sulfates, so much so that they tap water. One of the reasons is that there’s water on the planet because there is a flowing lake somewhere on the planet in the subsurface. It is now believed that once the components of that lake are studied further, how microbial life could exist could possibly be revealed. Also, different wavelengths of light being investigated to potentially give way to a better understanding of Mars’s past.
Further study will be ongoing, but the full extent of the findings may not be known for some time. The idea of life on another planet could be an extraordinary mark left on history forever.
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