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How Life on Mars Will Be Revealed by Curiosity
Saturday, June 16, 2012 17:00
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NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), nicknamed Curiosity, will land on Mars on Aug. 6 and reveal Martian life by detecting C12/C13 in Martian carbon compounds.
Curiosity is capable of precisely detecting carbon isotopes with its “Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)” (Ref. 1). Carbon compounds exist all over Mars surface (Ref. 2, 3). Those carbon compounds exist in organic matter and building blocks of life (Ref. 3). When irradiated with ultraviolet rays, those carbon compounds produce Martian methane (CH4, Ref. 4), whose isotopic proportions of carbon-12 to carbon-13 already reveal microbial origin (Ref. 4). Present and recent (<40,000-years-old) life on Mars could be revealed with detection of C12 and C14 (Ref. 5). That is how Curiosity is revealing present or past life on Mars.
Quote from second paragraph in Ref. 1: “The TLS obtains precise isotope ratios for C and O in carbon dioxide and measures trace levels of methane and its carbon isotope.”
Quote from Ref. 2: “Question 1: What does the inventory of carbon compounds near the surface of Mars tell us about its potential habitability?
Goal 1: Survey carbon compound sources and evaluate their possible mechanism of formation and destruction.”
Goal 1: Survey carbon compound sources and evaluate their possible mechanism of formation and destruction.”
Ref. 3: http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/6999138/Mars-carbon-find-a-breakthrough
Quote from Ref. 3: "Mars meteorites that landed on Earth show strong evidence that very large molecules containing carbon, which is a key ingredient for the building blocks of life, can originate on the Red Planet, researchers say."; "Steele's team examined samples from 11 Martian meteorites from a period spanning about 4.2 billion years. They detected large carbon compounds in 10."
Quote from Ref. 3: "Mars meteorites that landed on Earth show strong evidence that very large molecules containing carbon, which is a key ingredient for the building blocks of life, can originate on the Red Planet, researchers say."; "Steele's team examined samples from 11 Martian meteorites from a period spanning about 4.2 billion years. They detected large carbon compounds in 10."
Quote from last sentence in abstract in Ref. 4: “The stable carbon isotope composition, in contrast, is similar to that of terrestrial microbial origin; ”
Quote from last sentence in Ref. 5: “… the isotopic proportions of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in methane could distinguish between a biogenic and non-biogenic origin.“
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