- Category: The Web
- Posted on Monday, April 13, 2015 13:23
- Written by roger
>
The Curiosity rover science team at NASA made the first measurement of nitrogen, finding published a few weeks ago. “This is very important because for the first time reported the existence of nitrogen compounds on the surface of Mars,” said Rafael Navarro, UNAM researcher and member of the NASA team in this mission.
He added that the presence of that, essential for life on Earth and molecular nitrogen chemical element which constitutes 78 percent of the atmospheric air, could indicate that, in the past, Mars was suitable for life conditions.
The researcher of the Institute of Nuclear Sciences explained that the detection was performed by heating to a thousand degrees the ground and pulverized rock surface of Mars. The gases released were analyzed by the mass spectrometer of the SAM instrument, and nitric (NO) oxide and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) was identified, among others.
Nitrates are a type of molecules with nitrogen, in a way they can be used by living organisms. On Earth all life forms require nitrogen, because this compound is essential to form proteins and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) molecules containing the genetic instructions.
Because so far not found any life forms on the surface, the team of the experiment SAM believes that nitrates are old and could come from abiotic processes that occurred in the distant past of the neighboring planet, eg meteorite impacts and lightning.
Moreover, the mission recently discovered that billions of years ago Gale crater on its surface had some of the essential ingredients for life as liquid water and organic matter. Therefore, the finding of nitrogen reinforces the theory that in the past may have had suitable conditions for life
Source:.! Cronica.com.mx
<- disqus comments block -> <- joomlaworks "disqus comments for joomla!" (v3.5) ends here ->
No comments:
Post a Comment