Could ancient Martian life be preserved in meteor impact glass?
Bits of organic material have been identified trapped inside rock that has melted and re-solidified following a meteor strike. Could Martian impact glass also show clues of life?
This image provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech shows a simulation of an asteroid that passed through the Earth-moon system in February 2013.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/AP
When large asteroids or comets strike the Earth 鈥� as they have countless times throughout our聽planet鈥檚 history 鈥� the energy released in the event聽creates an enormous amount of heat, enough to briefly melt rock and soil at the impact site. That molten聽material quickly cools, trapping organic material and bits of plants and preserving them inside fragments of glass for tens of thousands, even millions of years.
Researchers studying impact debris聽on Earth think that the same thing could very well have happened on Mars, and that any evidence for ancient life聽on the Red Planet might be found聽by looking inside聽the聽glass.
A research team led by Pete Schultz, a geologist at聽聽in Providence, Rhode Island, has identified聽the remains of plant materials trapped inside impact glass found at several different sites scattered across Argentina, according to a university聽聽issued Friday, April 18.
惭别濒迟听聽from two聽impact events in particular, dating back 3 and 9 million years, were discovered聽to contain very well-preserved fragments of vegetation 鈥� providing not only samples of ancient organisms but also snapshots of the local environment from聽the time of the events.
鈥淭hese glasses preserve plant morphology from macro features all the way down to the micron scale,鈥� said Schultz. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really remarkable.鈥�
Schultz believes that the same process that trapped once-living material in Argentina鈥檚聽聽region 鈥� which is covered with windblown, Mars-like聽sediment, especially in the west 鈥� may have occurred on Mars, preserving any early organics located at and around impact sites.
鈥淚mpact glass may be where the 4 billion-year-old signs of life are hiding,鈥� Schultz said. 鈥淥n Mars they鈥檙e probably not going to come out screaming in the form of a plant, but we may find traces of organic compounds, which would be really exciting.鈥�
The research聽has been published in the latest issue of聽.
Source: Brown University
A graphic designer in Rhode Island, Jason Major writes about space exploration on his blog聽, Discovery News, and, of course, on Universe Today. Ad astra!
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