| Title | Biologically Useful Nitrogen Found on Mars by NASA Rover | |
| Date | Thursday March 26 2015, @01:08PM | |
| Author | janrinok | |
| Topic | ||
| from the little-green-men-rejoice dept. | ||
The NASA Curiosity rover has found biologically useful nitrogen on Mars. The nitrogen was found near the crater Gale. The nitrogen may have been produced by non-biological processes but shows that the prerequisites for life has been present in the past. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has published the full story, Evidence for indigenous nitrogen in sedimentary and aeolian deposits from the Curiosity rover investigations at Gale crater, Mars.
Along with other nitrogen compounds, the instruments detected nitric oxide (NO -- one atom of nitrogen bound to an oxygen atom) in samples from all three sites. Since nitrate is a nitrogen atom bound to three oxygen atoms, the team thinks most of the NO likely came from nitrate which decomposed as the samples were heated for analysis. Certain compounds in the SAM instrument can also release nitrogen as samples are heated; however, the amount of NO found is more than twice what could be produced by SAM in the most extreme and unrealistic scenario, according to Stern [of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland]. This leads the team to think that nitrates really are present on Mars, and the abundance estimates reported have been adjusted to reflect this potential additional source.
"Scientists have long thought that nitrates would be produced on Mars from the energy released in meteorite impacts, and the amounts we found agree well with estimates from this process," said Stern.
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