Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, Mars was home to oceans and rivers throughout the ages. But now NASA's search for signs have life has been solved. Ancient water and asteroid bombardment left behind what's known as Noachian terrain, regions that may show signs of ancient life.
“A primary aim of the upcoming Mars exploration missions (Mars 2020 and ExoMars) is to search for signs of ancient life. Rovers specifically equipped and well suited to search for signs of life will traverse and explore the surface of Mars, focusing on the Noachian terrains with moisture-rich ancient geological history and mineral springs that could have been colonized by microorganisms,” said researchers in an article in the magazine Nature Communications Earth & Environment.
Metallosphaera sedula, an extreme animal that lives in hot acids, has been found growing on the Black Beauty asteroid.
“Black Beauty is among the rarest substances on Earth, it is a unique Martian breccia formed by various pieces of Martian crust (some of them are dated at 4.42 ± 0.07 billion years) and ejected millions years ago from the Martian surface. We had to choose a pretty bold approach of crushing few grams of precious Martian rock to recreate the possible look of Mars’ earliest and simplest life form,” explains Tetyana Milojevic, head of the Space Biochemistry group at the University of Vienna.
The microbe samples consumed minerals contained in the Martian rock, converting it into biomineral poo. Patterns in the geology and chemistry of the rock should be similar to the evidence we would find of extraterrestrial life.
So why they weren't Martian natives, this astounding experiment really does show Mars could have once inhabited life, however intelligent it is. The deciding answer will be when more complex and weaker animals will be sent to Mars, proving these small but strong microscopic being aren't the only contender for mars master.
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