Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday July 07 2017, @04:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the bacteria-go-underground? dept.

An experiment using simulated Martian conditions has found that perchlorates bathed in UV light would quickly kill many potential Martian bacteria:

The hope for Martian life took another blow today. As Ian Sample at The Guardian reports, a new study suggests that in the presence of ultraviolet light, perchlorates, a class of chemical compounds widespread on Mars' surface, turn deadly for bacteria.

The presence of perchlorates isn't new. Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft detected perchlorates when they landed on the Martian surface in 1976, Jeffrey Kluger reports for Time. Since then, other spacecraft have confirmed the presence of the compounds. The 2009 Phoenix lander found that perchlorates make up between 0.4 and 0.6 percent of the soil sample it collected.

While perchlorates, which are composed of chlorine and oxygen, are toxic to humans, microbes typically love the stuff. And researchers have been optimistic that their presence could support bacterial life on Mars. As Kluger reports, some bacteria on Earth use naturally occurring perchlorate as an energy source. The compound also lowers the melting point of water, which could improve the chance of liquid water existing on the Red Planet.

But the latest study, published in the journal Scientific Reports [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04910-3] [DX], suggests that in the presence of ultraviolet light perchlorate is not so microbe-friendly. Mars has a thin atmosphere, which often leaves its surface bathed in UV rays. And when heated, chlorine-based molecules like perchlorates cause heavy damage to living cells, reports Sarah Fecht at Popular Science.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @10:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @10:36AM (#536068)

    I'm pretty sure UV light strong enough to significantly enter your body would already kill you, even without the perchlorates.