Ancient microbes, or traces of them, may still be preserved within Martian ice, waiting to be discovered by future missions to the Red Planet. By recreating Mars-like conditions in laboratory experiments, researchers from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Penn State showed that fragments of protein-forming molecules from E. coli bacteria could survive for more than 50 million years when trapped in Martian permafrost or ice caps, even under constant exposure to cosmic radiation.
The study, published in Astrobiology, suggests that missions searching for life on Mars should focus on regions dominated by pure ice or ice-rich permafrost rather than rocks, clay, or soil.
“Fifty million years is far greater than the expected age for some current surface ice deposits on Mars, which are often less than two million years old, meaning any organic life present within the ice would be preserved,” said co-author Christopher House, professor of geosciences, affiliate of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Earth and Environment Systems Institute, and director of the Penn State Consortium for Planetary and Exoplanetary Science and Technology. “That means if there are bacteria near the surface of Mars, future missions can find it.”
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