A tantalising whiff of carbon-based compounds has been picked up by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. But it's still not clear whether the eagerly awaited results show the true chemical nature of Mars or are the products of Earthly contaminants.
One of the main goals of the NASA rover is to search for signs of Martian habitability, including organics – carbon-containing compounds that are the building blocks of life. The rover's first meals of baked Martian soil showed carbon and hydrogen reacting with chlorine inside the robot's ovens, creating organic molecules.
This taste of carbon is intriguing but it's a far cry from recent feverish speculation that the rover found definitive evidence for organics on the Red Planet. While the chlorine is almost certainly from Mars, it is still unclear whether the carbon is native Martian material or something from Earth that was trapped in the rover. Even if the carbon is from Mars, it may come from inorganic sources, like carbonate rocks.
"The rover has made this detection of simple organic compounds," said project scientist John Grotzinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We just don't know if they're indigenous to Mars or not."
To read more, click here.