NASA Experiment Shows Martian Ice Could Preserve Signs of Ancient Life

In a recent report, it has been proposed that remnants of the ancient life as we know them may be trapped beneath the frozen surface of Mars. In test conditions, researchers had frozen the bacterial cells in pure water ice during Mars like conditions and subjected them to high doses of radiation. Amazingly, they discovered that the protein molecules (amino acids) were still viable tens of millions of years when they are isolated in pure ice.

Lab Tests Simulate Martian Ice

According to the study, scientists froze E. coli bacteria in two scenarios: a block of pure water ice and a similar block mixed with Martian soil. Both were cooled to roughly -60°F (-51°C) and bombarded with radiation matching 50 million years on Mars.

In the pure ice, over 10% of the amino acids survived this simulated exposure, but in the soil-bearing samples nearly all organic molecules decayed. In other words, pure ice protected the biomolecules, while minerals allowed radiation damage to spread.

Implications for Mars Exploration

 According to the study by lead researcher Alexander Pavlov of NASA, pure ice, or the ice-rich areas adjacent to the surface, are considered ideal in the search of preserved biomolecules. The reason behind this is that a lot of the ice on Mars is relatively recent (most of it being less than 2 million years old), thus any ancient organics caught within ice would be preserved.

These ice reserves will probably be the focus of future missions with exercises or scoops, and the frozen layers of Mars will be the time capsules of its life.