MessageToEagle.com

Menu
  • Home
  • All Science
  • Astronomy
  • Physics
  • Earth
     
  • Technology
  • Ancient World

Life On Mars Search Could Be Misled By False Fossils, Study Says

MessageToEagle.com | November 22, 2021 | Astronomy | No Comments

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – Mars explorers searching for signs of ancient life could be fooled by fossil-like specimens created by chemical processes, research suggests.

Rocks on Mars may contain numerous types of non-biological deposits that look similar to the kinds of fossils likely to be found if the planet ever supported life, a study says.

Composite image showing some of the types of fossil-like specimens created by chemical reactions that could be found on Mars. Credit: Sean McMahon, Julie Cosmidis and Joti Rouillard

Composite image showing some of the types of fossil-like specimens created by chemical reactions that could be found on Mars. Credit: Sean McMahon, Julie Cosmidis and Joti Rouillard

Telling these false fossils apart from what could be evidence of ancient life on the surface of Mars—which was temporarily habitable four billion years ago—is key to the success of current and future missions, researchers say.

Astrobiologists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford reviewed evidence of all known processes that could have created lifelike deposits in rocks on Mars.

They identified dozens of processes—with many more likely still undiscovered—that can produce structures that mimic those of microscopic, simple lifeforms that may once have existed on Mars.

Among the lifelike specimens, these processes can create are deposits that look like bacterial cells and carbon-based molecules that closely resemble the building blocks of all known life.

Because signs of life can be so closely mimicked by non-living processes, the origins of any fossil-like specimens found on Mars are likely to be very ambiguous, the team says.

They call for greater interdisciplinary research to shed more light on how lifelike deposits could form on Mars, and thereby aid the search for evidence of ancient life there and elsewhere in the solar system.

The research is published in the Journal of the Geological Society.

Dr. Sean McMahon, Chancellor’s Fellow in Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physic and Astronomy, said: “At some stage a Mars rover will almost certainly find something that looks a lot like a fossil, so being able to confidently distinguish these from structures and substances made by chemical reactions is vital.

For every type of fossil out there, there is at least one non-biological process that creates very similar things, so there is a real need to improve our understanding of how these form.”

Julie Cosmidis, Associate Professor of Geobiology at the University of Oxford, said: “We have been fooled by life-mimicking processes in the past. On many occasions, objects that looked like fossil microbes were described in ancient rocks on Earth and even in meteorites from Mars, but after deeper examination they turned out to have non-biological origins.

This article is a cautionary tale in which we call for further research on life-mimicking processes in the context of Mars, so that we avoid falling into the same traps over and over again.”

Study published in Journal of the Geological Society, 2021; jgs2021-050 DOI: 10.1144/jgs2021-050

Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. MessageToEagle.com Staff

Related Posts

  • An artist's conception of K2-22b, an exoplanet slightly smaller in size than Neptune. Observations suggest that this exoplanet is in disintegrating, and has debris in a trailing and leading dust tails. NASA Observing Disintegration Of Planet K2-22b
    No Comments | Jan 22, 2019
  • This HiRISE observation shows the northwest quadrant of a fracture-filled crater on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Mars Orbiter Catches A Crater Full of Cracks
    No Comments | Jan 3, 2016
  • New Dark Matter Theory Explains Two Puzzles In Astrophysics New Dark Matter Theory Explains Two Puzzles In Astrophysics
    No Comments | Dec 11, 2023
  • Hubble Spots Most Distant Single Star Ever Seen At A Distance Of 28 Billion Light-Years Hubble Spots Most Distant Single Star Ever Seen At A Distance Of 28 Billion Light-Years
    No Comments | Mar 31, 2022
  • Transmitted to Earth on Dec. 24, 2015, this image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) extends New Horizons’ highest-resolution swath of Pluto to the center of Sputnik Planum, the informally named plain that forms the left side of Pluto’s “heart.” Mission scientists believe the pattern of the cells stems from the slow thermal convection of the nitrogen-dominated ices. The darker patch at the center of the image is likely a dirty block of water ice “floating” in denser solid nitrogen, and which has been dragged to the edge of a convection cell. Also visible are thousands of pits in the surface, which scientists believe may form by sublimation. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI Intriguing “X” On Pluto’s Icy Surface Of Sputnik Planum
    No Comments | Jan 8, 2016
  • Astronomers Discover A Massive Galaxy 'Shipyard' In The Distant Universe Astronomers Discover A Massive Galaxy ‘Shipyard’ In The Distant Universe
    No Comments | Oct 27, 2021
  • Unknown Signals Picked Up Near Red Dwarf Star Ross 128
    No Comments | Jul 19, 2017
  • NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected the first extragalactic gamma-ray pulsar, PSR J0540-6919, near the Tarantula Nebula (top center) star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy that orbits our own Milky Way. Fermi detects a second pulsar (right) as well but not its pulses. PSR J0540-6919 now holds the record as the highest-luminosity gamma-ray pulsar. The angular distance between the pulsars corresponds to about half the apparent size of a full moon. Background: An image of the Tarantula Nebula and its surroundings in visible light. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center; background: ESO/R. Fosbury (ST-ECF) First Gamma-Ray Pulsar Detected In Another Galaxy
    No Comments | Nov 14, 2015
  • A black hole pulls material off a neighboring star and into an accretion disk. Credit: Aurore Simonnet and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Search Reveals Eight New Sources Of Black Hole Echoes
    No Comments | May 3, 2022
  • The Program of the Antarctic Syowa Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere/Incoherent Scatter radar (PANSY radar) consisting of an active phased array of 1045 Yagi antennas. CREDIT Taishi Hashimoto (NIPR) Largest Radar In Antarctica Measures Earth’s Ionosphere For The First Time
    No Comments | Dec 1, 2019

Follow Us

On This Day In History: Irish Rebellion Led By The United Irishmen Against British Rule Begins – On May 24, 1798

On This Day In History: Irish Rebellion Led By The United Irishmen Against British Rule Begins – On May 24, 1798

Latest From Message To Eagle

  • Rare Binary Star System Forms When A Neutron Star Orbits Within Another Star
  • Tapping Into The World’s Largest Gold Reserves
  • Cosmic Joust’: Pair Of Galaxies In Deep-Space Battle
  • Forest Management Can Influence Health Benefits
  • Could AI Understand Emotions Better Than We Do?
  • One Of The Earliest Human Settlements Yet Known In Scotland – Discovered
  • Extraordinary Find: Monumental Relief Of King Ashurbanipal And Deities Unearthed In Ancient City Of Nineveh
  • When Two Galaxies Come Together And Become One

Library of Ancient & Unexplained Mysteries

Library of Ancient & Unexplained Mysteries

Latest Archaeology News

Latest Archaeology News

Recommended books:

W3Counter Web Stats

Rare Binary Star System Forms When A Neutron Star Orbits Within Another Star

Rare Binary Star System Forms When A Neutron Star Orbits Within Another Star

Tapping Into The World’s Largest Gold Reserves

Tapping Into The World’s Largest Gold Reserves

Cosmic Joust': Pair Of Galaxies In Deep-Space Battle

Cosmic Joust’: Pair Of Galaxies In Deep-Space Battle

Forest Management Can Influence Health Benefits

Forest Management Can Influence Health Benefits

Could AI Understand Emotions Better Than We Do?

Could AI Understand Emotions Better Than We Do?

One Of The Earliest Human Settlements Yet Known In Scotland – Discovered

One Of The Earliest Human Settlements Yet Known In Scotland – Discovered

© 2025 MessageToEagle.com.
  • Privacy And Cookies Policy