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Potential organic salt detection from Curiosity yields further evidence for past organics on Mars
While organic compounds have been confirmed on the Martian surface and near-surface areas since 2018, new Earth-based experiments point to a potentially tantalizing series of signatures from Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument that could indicate the presence of organic salts at the rover's Gale Crater location.
What's more, the new research from a team led by J. M. T. Lewis, an organic geochemist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, points to further potential evidence that organic salts might be prevalent across the Martian terrain. The hard part is conclusively detecting them.
[...] While organic compounds and organic salts can form from the presence of microbial life, they can also form from geologic processes.
Though not confirmed, organic salts would be further evidence that organic matter once existed on Mars' surface, and, if they are still present, could support hypothetical microbial life on Mars today, as some life on Earth uses organic salt as food/energy.
Also at SciTechDaily.
Pyrolysis of Oxalate, Acetate, and Perchlorate Mixtures and the Implications for Organic Salts on Mars (open, DOI: 10.1029/2020JE006803) (DX)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @01:19AM (5 children)
Yup. Must be organic. No possible way an inorganic process could have done this.
Just like the other six times we said it....
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:37AM (3 children)
What is an organic salt, anyway?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:31AM (1 child)
In a salt, the (prevailingly two) compounds are bound into a molecule by being positively/negatively charged ions. E.g. a molecule of table salt consists of a (singly) positively charged sodium ion and a (singly) negatively charged chloride ion. The charges in a single molecule always balance out to zero. (... there's a lot more to it, but that's the 101)
In an organic salt, at least one of the compounds is "organic", i.e.: it contains one or more carbon atoms. Note that this is just a question of definitions. "Organic" in chemistry means "carbon" (a very few trivial carbon compounds are usually excluded from "organic"). It does NOT mean "life", and indeed a good load of organic substances (even very life-associated stuff like amino acids!) can have a totally non-biological origin.
On the other hand, and wild speculations notwithstanding, as far as we know "life" absolutely requires "organic". Indeed, there is a whole theory (and experiments) and ongoing research on how "life" could spontaneously start from non-living "organic".
So finding "organic" is surefire way to say "perhaps life as we know it, perhaps not", whereas not finding organic is a quite certain " most probably no life at all".
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday May 31 2021, @08:49PM
Thanks. That's a clear explanation.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 25 2021, @09:28AM
Knock yourself out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organic_salts
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:37AM
"Organic" in chemistry means "contains carbon".
It's a technical term and its precisely defined meaning has nothing to do with " life", unlike the colloquial usage.
Do not conflate the two. Nobody said "life". Nobody wanted to hint at life. Nobody is misrepresenting the facts.
This is not a conspiracy of fools, this is you making a fool of yourself by demonstrating you missed (or forgot) 10th grade highschool.