Discovering life on Mars: How Aussie rocks may hold the key
Ancient Australian rock formations in Western Australia's Pilbara may hold the key to finding life on Mars.
In NASA's latest venture to the Red Planet, the Mars2020 mission, research led by Australian scientist Dr Adrian Brown will be harnessed to search for signs of life.
As deputy program scientist of the mission, Dr Brown's study of a 3.5 billion-year-old rock from a remote part of the Pilbara suggests there may be more similarities between Mars and Earth than we know.
Dr Adrian Brown and Michael Storrie-Lombardi take spectrometric readings at the famous Trendall locality, Pilbara, Western Australia. The mineralogy at this site could contain important parallels to that of Jezero crater on Mars. Mike Storrie-Lombardi
"We can use that wasteland to see something for us," he said.
"For scientists, it's the opportunity to look forward and backward at how a 'failed' planet might have looked, and how we might bring it back to life."
Data from past missions has identified signs of liquid water on Mars – an element crucial to sustaining life.
READ MORE: NASA launches Mars rover to look for signs of ancient life
One site, thought to have been a lake inside a crater called Jezero, is what the Perseverance rover in the Mars2020 mission will examine.
"We might be able to find amongst the Martian rocks some direct biosignatures, or we might find them when we get the rocks back on the upcoming Mars Sample Return mission in 2031," Dr Brown said.
In 2003, researchers identified the primitive mineral olivine on Mars in a trough system near Jezero.
The Mars 2020/Perseverance rover is designed to better understand the geology of Mars and seek signs of ancient life. NASA
Olivine is also found here on Earth and has since been discovered inside Jezero, along with carbonate minerals, which can indicate remnants of shells or bones associated with life.
Beneath the Jezero deltas is the olivine-carbonate unit, thought to have formed 3.82 billion years ago.
Scientists suggested that stromatolites could be present in the marginal carbonates around the edge of the crater.
Stromatolites form on Earth when mats of photosynthetic microbes like algae trap sand and sediment, creating successive layers that can become lithified and preserved in the rock.
The Strelley Pool Chert in the Pilbara is one of the few places on Earth where stromatolites of the same ancient origins to those on Mars have been discovered - constituting some of the earliest signs of life on Earth.
READ MORE: NASA's most sophisticated Mars rover
Aerial view from the Piper Cub flying over the Pilbara in Western Australia, over a unit called Marble Bar chert. A sample of the Marble Bar chert is the arrowed sample that is currently flying to Mars as a test target for the SuperCam instrument. Supplied
It's the similarity in age between the Strelley Pool stromatolites and the olivine-carbonate lithology in Jezero that's of key interest in the 2020 mission.
"For all of us, the most exciting prospect is finding signs of life, biosignatures, that give an indication that Mars was inhabited when water last flowed on the Red Planet," Dr Brown said.
"We may find stromatolites associated with carbonate, similar to what we have found looking back in time on Earth.
"Or we might collect a promising sample and bring it back to our labs here on Earth, study it with our newest equipment, and then find signs of life."
The Perseverance rover is anticipated to land on the Jezero crater on February 18, 2021 to begin the search for life on Mars.
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