UNAM studies the desert to find life on Mars

Space is a place that holds secrets that human beings want to discover until today. Finding life on other planets is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating topics studied by Astrobiology.

Many never imagined that in order to find and study other stars it is necessary to understand extreme environments in our world. It is extremely important for astronomy to study these types of areas because it helps to understand some physical or chemical environmental conditions that exist on other planets because these territories have a great diversity.

The specialist Pavel Ulianov, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Geology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), for more for 10 years has been dedicated to investigating life on other planets, specifically on Mars, so his laboratory is environments that share planet-like characteristics.

“On Earth there are several environments similar to Mars, some of them are the Tinto River in Spain, the Atacama Desert in Chile, the Mojave Desert in the United States, Antarctica, the Sahara Desert, the Gobi Desert and also the Mexican desert in the north of our country,” the specialist commented in an interview on this topic.

Desert varnishes are small dark films that cover rocks in arid and desert environments. They are composed of oxides of iron, magnesium and clay materials, the interesting thing about this layer is that the formation process is very slow since they grow from 1 to 40 microns every thousand years.

The formation of this varnish is unknown to science, however, the theory proposes that organisms assimilate the elements already mentioned and deposit them on the rock surface as a biotic process. Therefore, the objective of this research is to understand what the environmental conditions were thousands of years ago on Mars when varnishes were created so that scientists can understand their formation.

“In all the varnishes studied, it seems that the presence of life is necessary for the growth of this film. However, there are several hypotheses, one of them being that their formation is totally inorganic, that it is a biological formation or a combination of the two,” said the researcher.

Rocks with a lot of these elements have been found on Mars, so according to the scientists' logic is that if genetic material and traces of microorganisms have been found on the planet in these layers, there is a possibility that life has arisen on early Mars and could have helped the formation of varnishes Martians.

The project “Mission Perseverance” is currently being carried out on Mars, promoted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which aims to analyze the elements contained in varnish in rocks on Mars, through a Robot with laser beam that has the ability to make an opening in the varnish.

This Robot, unlike others, stands out for its weather station, the high-gain antenna and the calibration system of the Supercam camera, elements that together will allow a more specific and advanced study of the samples it collects on the planet. It should be noted that this mission is also aimed not only at the analysis of varnish, but also of rock and regolith.

Is there or was there microbial life on the Red planet? it's still a mystery.

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