Chris Cantell Discusses Science: NASA looking for life on Mars by Martina Janeckova

On Thursday August 1, 2008 Phoenix scientists announced that the mission confirmed the presence of subsurface water ice in the north polar regions of Mars- first detected by NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter in 2002. However scientists still have a lot of work left to determine whether there has ever been life on Mars. The lander is now analyzing the ice to see if it was ever a liquid and if it contains organic materials, the building blocks of life. Phoenix will now heat up samples of the icy dirt mixture in tiny ovens of its Thermal and evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA). As the samples are heated, any hydrated minerals, such as carbonates, sulfates or clays, show themselves as they break apart. But so far, organic molecules haven’t been found on Mars. When the Viking landers heated up dirt samples in the 1970s, “there were really no organic molecules at all,” William Boynton, scientist of the University of Arizona said. But he added that dirt near Martian equator faces strong oxidizing pressures, which can destroy organics. If Phoenix doesn’t find organics, the mission won’t be a failure, said Bruce Jakosky, a geologist at the University of Colorado, because it still gives valuable information about the northern region. And even if it finds organics, it doesn’t mean that’s life. Phoenix isn’t the last mission to find organics on Mars. In 2009 NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will start where the 1970s Viking missions ended, exploring the region closer to the equator. Jakosky said that the evidence available to scientists now suggests that there could have been life on Mars, it’s just a matter of finding a spot that preserves the signs of it.

by Martina Janeckova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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