The Curiosity found on Mars vehicle fixed nitrogen in sediments, “a new step in the assessment of the habitability of the planet, since nitrogen is an essential element for life.”
This is the main conclusion of a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), in which, by Spanish part, involved researchers from the Center for Scientific Research (CSIC).
These results suggest that Mars hosted a nitrogen cycle at some point in its evolution as a planet.
The presence of nitrogen has been verified by the SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instrument samples taken at three different sites, reported by the CSIC in a press release.
Two of them come from boreholes drilled into the rock baptized during the mission as Sheepbed in Yellowknife Bay, a place where at some point it is believed that there were lakes and rivers.
The third sample comes from a sand deposit representative of Mars dust.
Francisco Javier Martín Torres, the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences (joint CSIC and the University of Granada), explained that the availability of useful biochemical nitrogen, together with the conditions that “we believe that existed on Mars and the possible presence of organic compounds in the soil, reflecting a potentially habitable for some kind of living in the past “scenario.
As to whether life could exist on Mars today, both underground and on the surface, the existence of fixed nitrogen is a factor to consider because it is an essential element in the synthesis of molecules such important life like proteins , RNA and DNA, has detailed the researcher.
However, according to this study, Mars is not a mechanism that makes the fixed nitrogen back into the atmosphere and keep the nitrogen cycle as it does on Earth known.
Therefore, researchers suggest that if life ever existed on the surface of Mars was not a widespread presence throughout the planet, although this should be contrasted with later studies.
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