A team of scientists from NASA, which 13 years ago first explored the Martian meteorite, found new evidence that together with him on the ground were fossilized microorganisms. Thus, the meteorite “Allan Hills” (Allen Hills) provided further proof of the existence of life on the red planet in a certain period of its history. The opening was made possible through research using advanced electron microscope with high resolution by which studied magnetite crystals present in the discovered in 1984 by Allen Hills ALH 84001. To date, the biological nature of the entity in question, but first since 1996, when it was announced that such probability, the scientists say their confidence in their findings. The collected data do not indicate a life directly, but more than ever to support the hypothesis that once on the surface of Mars or in the waters beneath it existed mikroogranizmy. The study is published in the November issue of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta – edition of the Community study of geochemistry and meteorites (Geochemical and Meteoritic Society).
new work built around the so-called biomorfov. They are under the top layer of the meteorite that fell to Earth 13,000 years ago, and therefore not present there at the time of entry into the atmosphere, and not have resulted from contamination of terrestrial life forms. In 1996, the chief researcher of the Johnson Space Center, David McKay (David Mackay), who was a team of scientists studying a meteorite, among others, came to the conclusion that the microscopic fossils are evidence of life, but skeptics do not agree with this categorical. Magnetite crystals that are similar to the “magnetic bacteria from the terrestrial rocks form, individual experts, called the result of the destruction of carbonate precipitated by a collision with Mars of a cosmic body heat. A new analysis has rejected such a possibility. Detailed chemical tests confirmed that 25% of crystal structures are of biological origin.
” We feel vindicated. We have shown that alternative explanations totally incorrect, and forced to return to the initial findings on the formation of these structures from bacteria on Mars, “- says McKay. According to astrobiology at the University of Nevada (University of Nevada) Bazilinski Dennis (Dennis Bazylinski), yet many scientists had doubts, but thanks to new evidence, any non-biological explanations are no longer valid. Nevertheless, a meteorite would never be able to answer such a complex issue, as life on another planet. According to scientists, the meteorite was formed as a result of collision with an asteroid and the red planet after a long stay in space for about 16 million years the Earth has reached in the Allen Hills in Antarctica. Researchers were able to set its Martian origin by analyzing the chemical composition matched to the quantitative ratio of gases, the data which were obtained during the mission of the comic ship Viking to Mars in 1970.
addition to microorganisms, the meteorite also confirms the assumption that water existed on Mars in the liquid state, and it once again convinces the scientists in the past in a favorable environment for the development of life on the fourth planet from the Sun. In Allen Hills ALH 84001 researchers examined two other Martian meteorites: fallen in Egypt in 1911, Nakhla and found the Japanese Antarctic expedition Yamato 593. These fossils also contain education signs of microorganisms.
Materials on the topic:
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