Fuzzy Martian Life Found in Salt Chemical
A bundle of cellulose fibers around 253 million years old, as seen under a scanning electron microscope. The plant-like material was recovered from a salt deposit 2,000 feet beneath the ground in New Mexico. Credit: Jack Griffith, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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In the latest Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference with an excess of 200 talent and resources talks and performances online, a $100,000 prize is given to each of the top three individuals, along with a granting of “One Wish to Change the World”, achieving far reaching impact initiated from its original collaborative initiatives. With a goal of seeking a deeper understanding of the world, a serious effort is made to turn that understanding into a better future for the world. And it was to the latest conference that Stephen Hawking plugged into from his home in Britain with a speech touching on his view of whether or not there were forms of advanced extraterrestrial life.
Keeping this in mind, let us first look at ancient fuzz called cellulose, which has been found preserved in chunks of salt deposits more than 250 million years old. “These fibers are the oldest native, intact remnants of a living thing ever directly observed,” Griffith told SPACE.com. “It’s extremely fortuitous timing, as we’ve just discovered salt deposits on Mars’ surface.” This is the oldest biological substance that has been recovered at this date, found a week after the announcement of a Martian discovery of evaporated salt deposits by a planetary scientific team, adding another element in the ongoing search for alien life or of its biological past. Jack Griffith, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, feels that the newly found microscopic cellulose fibers are one “of the best signatures of any past life on Mars”. Griffith and his colleagues have detailed their find regarding the cellulose discovery in the April issue of the “Astrobiology” journal.
The salt find in the ancient salt bed in New Mexico and nuclear waste repository, analyzed under an electron microscope, is said to involve the deposit of algae placed the micro fibers as the lake evaporated, according to Griffith. “Cellulose fibers are just strings of glucose sugar molecules stuck together, end on end,” Griffith said. “You can dissolve glucose, but as cellulose it resists some of the harshest chemicals and conditions out there.” He also feels that micro fibers came from the same type of plant-like algae cells which grew abundantly in a lake similar to Utah’s Great Salt Lake. He also feels if a robotic Martian explorer would seek signs of ancient life on Mars, the best place to look for cellulose in salt deposits scattered south of the Martian’s equator would be ideal. Malcolm Brown Jr., a molecular biologist at University of Texas at Austin who has studied cellulose for decades, affirmed that such molecules could survive the test of time within salt. “I have no doubt in my mind that it’s possible, even after 3 billion years,” Brown said, “just as long as excessive heat or pressure didn’t destroy the evidence.”
When Stephen Hawking referred to extraterrestrial life on other planets at the latest TED conference, he “was said to have an interesting view” according to Robb Smith’s blog, “An Integral Life…”. Stephen Hawking has two views on life existing on other planet, when he was asked whether life existed on other planets or not: “NO: because in the course of 15 billion years of evolution, if there was advanced life in other galaxies then we should have detected any life that was within 100 light years of our radio telescopes (at least no life within 100 light years). YES: but if advanced civilizations tend to kill themselves off when measured over long time periods, we might happen to be measuring during a time period when prior advanced civilizations have already gone extinct and those that still exist are not yet advanced enough to generate radio signals”. And now we have, not advanced life, but a Martian time period possibly already gone extinct or just beginning to form.
Hmmm…is the glass half full or half empty?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 1:02 am and is filed under Mission Objectives, Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
