Status: 10.08.2023, 19:11 p.m.
By: Tanja Banner
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According to researchers, the hexagonal patterns discovered by NASA's Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars indicate damp-dry cycles. These could have made the emergence of life possible. © NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/IRAP
Was life once possible on Mars? NASA's Curiosity rover is making a new discovery that may help answer the question.
Toulouse – The exact origin of life on our planet is a mystery to science. However, one theory that has held for a long time is that alternations between dry and humid phases on Earth led to microbial life emerging from complex chemical elements. Therefore, a new discovery of the NASA rover "Curiosity" on Mars is of particular interest to scientists.
The rover has been studying the red planet for eleven years and is currently climbing Mount Sharp in Gale Crater on Mars. There he discovered something that seems unspectacular to laymen: cracks in the parched soil. These cracks form a hexagonal pattern – which makes them particularly intriguing for science, as it is known how such hexagonal cracks are formed.
NASA rover "Curiosity" discovers special mud cracks on Mars
When mud dries up, it contracts – creating T-shaped cracks. Curiosity has found such cracks on Mars before, and they are an indication that mud has formed and dried out again. However, when the mud comes into repeated contact with water afterwards, the T-shaped cracks become softer and eventually Y-shaped – the typical hexagonal patterns are created.
"These special sludge cracks occur when wet and dry conditions occur repeatedly – perhaps even seasonally," explains William Rapin from the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie in Toulouse. Rapin is leading a study on the hexagonal patterns on Mars, which was published in the journal Nature.
NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars since 2012. ©
Hexagonal patterns on Mars have a special meaning
The hexagonal patterns on Mars even formed when new sediment was brought in by water, according to a NASA statement. The scientists conclude that the alternating wet and dry conditions may have existed over a long period of time. A salty layer on the mud cracks has preserved them for billions of years and allows researchers to study them today. Using the "Curiosity" instruments "Mastcam" and "ChemCam", the research team has determined that the salt is between 3.8 and 3.6 billion years old.
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"This is the first tangible evidence that the ancient climate of Mars had regular, Earth-like wet-dry cycles," Rapin points out. "But more importantly, moist-dry cycles are helpful – perhaps even necessary – for the molecular evolution that could lead to life." Water is essential for life, but there must be a certain balance – neither too much nor too little water.
Patterns on Mars show that there were once moist-dry cycles
According to science, the conditions that can support microbial life are not the same as those necessary to favor chemical reactions that can lead to life. Moist-dry cycles regulate the concentration of chemicals that enable the basic reactions to give rise to life.
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It is not the first time that NASA's Curiosity rover has made discoveries on Mars that suggest microbial life may once have been possible there. "In eleven years, we have found a lot of evidence that microbial life may have existed on ancient Mars. Now the mission has found evidence of conditions that could also have favored the emergence of life," says Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Curiosity" and the rover "Perseverance" have already discovered organic material on Mars, among other things.
"Curiosity" find is a stroke of luck for research
It is a stroke of luck for the scientists: only because Mars has no moving tectonic plates, the billion-year-old mud cracks are still visible – a testimony to a very distant past. On Earth, on the other hand, plate tectonics causes similar features to disappear. "We are fortunate to have a planet like Mars nearby, which still preserves the memory of the natural processes that may have led to the emergence of life," Rapin says enthusiastically. (tab)
This article, written by the editors, used machine support. The article was carefully reviewed by editor Tanja Banner before publication.