Red Planet Showing Amazing Indications

Image Url: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19808

Variation of Methane Gas with Season and Primitive Organic Molecules on Mars discovered by NASA's Curiosity Rover

The fourth planet of our solar system, named after the Roman God of War and situated next to our Earth has always been of interests among astronomers and space researchers. The red appearance of this planet makes it a very bright celestial object in the night sky and thus the name Red Planet. The red appearance of the planet is mostly due to the martian soil containing rust. This planet is very much similar with our own planet and space scientists are curious to search the planet for any evidence of ancient martian life that may have destroyed after the destruction of the martian atmosphere. Researches are also going on to explore the possibilities of sustaining colonization in near future. To explore such possibilities and to search for any evidence of life, NASA sent Curiosity-a car size rover as a part of their Mars Science Laboratory mission and launched on 2011. Now recently it has found primitive evidence, well preserved in the martian rocks and evidence from martian atmosphere indicating the possibility of ancient life. supported by the red planet. Though the planet is not inhabitable today but certain evidence indicates that the earlier martian atmosphere allowed water to liquefy which is the prime ingredient for life. The liquid water contains other necessary chemicals and ingredients which can form the building blocks of life under certain energy conditions. Small organic molecules were found on the mudstone when curiosity rover was drilling through it near Gale Crater-its main area of investigation. The small organic molecules obtained from the mudstone fragments are assumed to be part of large organic molecules that do not vapourize easily and the presence of sulphur in the mudstone fragments may have preserved the molecules well. The organic molecules have very high carbon content of the order of parts per million similar to martian meteorites which are several times higher than any prior organic carbon detection on the martian surface. Moreover the curiosity rover has earlier detected huge amount of methane gas in the martian atmosphere which may has formed from the chemicals of the mudstone but researchers cannot rule out the possibility of its formation from biological sources. Now the curiosity rover has detected the seasonal variation of the methane gas around its investigating area which increases during summer and decreases during winter. Such evidences are raising enormous curiosity among scientists regarding the red planet and as the name indicates, the Curiosity Rover is continuously searching for more evidence of primitive life on martian soil and other necessary ingredients that may support life in near future. Thus we cannot completely deny the possibility of existence of life on Mars in the long past and the destruction of its atmosphere may have wiped out all life forms. But if there are positive signals then we may colonize the red planet in near future by using advance technologies.