NASA takes stock of key existence ingredient on mars

Scientists the usage of knowledge from NASA’s curiosity rover measured the entire natural carbon – a key thing within the molecules of existence – in martian rocks for the primary time. Organic carbon is carbon certain to a atom. It's miles the premise for natural molecules, which could be created and utilized by all known types of lifestyles. But, organic carbon on mars doesn't prove the existence of life there thanks to the very fact it should also come from nonliving resources, inclusive of meteorites, volcanoes, or be fashioned in vicinity through floor reactions.

Organic carbon has been located on mars before, but earlier measurements only produced data on precise compounds, or represented measurements capturing only an element of the carbon within the rocks. The new size offers the general quantity of natural carbon in those rocks. While the ground of mars is inhospitable for existence now, there's proof that billions of years within the past the climate became extra earth-like, with a thicker ecosystem and liquid water that flowed into rivers and seas. After you consider that liquid water is important for existence as we comprehend it, scientists suppose martian life, if it ever evolved, might need been sustained by means of key elements which incorporates natural carbon, if found in sufficient amount.