Speaker 1: Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos
Speaker 1: with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a
Speaker 1: gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for
Speaker 1: unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries
Speaker 1: of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful
Speaker 1: slumber under the night sky.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. Today, we're doing a deep dive into
Speaker 2: something truly fascinating, the ongoing hunt for life beyond Earth,
Speaker 2: specifically what's happening on Mars right now.
Speaker 3: It's a quest that really captures the imagination, doesn't it
Speaker 3: asking those big questions about our place in the universe.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And you know, things have gotten incredibly exciting lately
Speaker 2: thanks to NASA's perseverance rover. I mean, I've been following
Speaker 2: this pretty closely, and these new findings, Wow, they really
Speaker 2: make you rethink Mars's ancient past.
Speaker 3: They really do. What's got the scientific community buzzing, I
Speaker 3: think is the nature of these findings. We're talking about
Speaker 3: what are called potential biosignatures.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's unpack that potential biosignatures, not proof.
Speaker 3: Yet exactly not definitive proof, not yet anyway, but they
Speaker 3: are strong indicators pointers towards the possibility of past life
Speaker 3: and even finding potential signs. While the implications are just huge.
Speaker 2: It forces you to consider how common life might actually
Speaker 2: be out there.
Speaker 3: Precisely. This isn't the end of the story, obviously, but
Speaker 3: it feels like a really crucial, thrilling step forward in
Speaker 3: a long scientific process.
Speaker 2: In this particular study we're diving into. It comes from
Speaker 2: researchers like doctor Michael Tice at Texas A and M
Speaker 2: published in Nature.
Speaker 3: That's right, highly credible source, and the focus is on
Speaker 3: a very specific spot in jeserro Creator on Mars, an
Speaker 3: area called the bright Angel formation.
Speaker 2: Right, So our mission today is to really get into
Speaker 2: this study. What did they find, What does it really mean?
Speaker 2: How solid is the science and why is it so significant?
Speaker 3: And we'll explore that tantazing idea. What if life used
Speaker 3: similar chemical tricks on early Mars as it did on
Speaker 3: early Earth?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Does that suggest life as well? Maybe not such
Speaker 2: a rare thing after all. Let's get into the chemistry,
Speaker 2: the geology and all the possibilities. Okay, so let's set
Speaker 2: the scene. Many of you listening probably know about Perseverance,
Speaker 2: NASA's amazing rover on Mars. It's basically a rolling geology
Speaker 2: and astrobiology lab about the size of a car.
Speaker 3: Been up there since what February twenty twenty one, doing
Speaker 3: incredible work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and its main goal is epic look for signs
Speaker 2: of ancient life, collect samples, samples that might eventually come
Speaker 2: back to Earth.
Speaker 3: Which is key, as we'll discuss later.
Speaker 2: Definitely. But picture this robot, you know, built by us,
Speaker 2: exploring this alien world, examining rocks dust like a field geologist,
Speaker 2: but millions of miles away. It's kind of amazing, it
Speaker 2: really is. And getting to this bright angel spot wasn't easy.
Speaker 2: It had to navigate this big, dunefieldly to dodge massive boulders.
Speaker 2: I mean, one wrong move could end the mission.
Speaker 3: It's a slow, careful process. Every meter covered is a
Speaker 3: huge engineering achievement.
Speaker 2: It really is like watching a detective piece together a well,
Speaker 2: a cosmic cold case.
Speaker 3: Rock by rock and the location Jesura Crater that was
Speaker 3: no accident. Scientists picked it for a very specific reason.
Speaker 2: Because it used to be a lake right billions of
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 3: Exactly. All the evidence points to a large lake fed
Speaker 3: by rivers like the Nureta Valleys. This is back when
Speaker 3: Mars was much warmer and wetter than it is today.
Speaker 2: And the thinking is on Earth, where there's water, there's
Speaker 2: usually life.
Speaker 3: That's the guiding principle. So an ancient lake bed like Jezero,
Speaker 3: that's prime real estate for finding signs of past water
Speaker 3: and maybe just maybe signs of past life.
Speaker 2: The sediments laid down in that lake, they can preserve.
Speaker 3: Evidence potentially, Yes, fine grained mudstones laid down layer by
Speaker 3: layer could trap and preserve biosignatures, much like lakebeds do
Speaker 3: here on Earth. It's like Mars left us a perfectly
Speaker 3: preserved geological invitation.
Speaker 2: So perseverance makes it tough journey and finally gets to
Speaker 2: the Bright Angel formation, and right away it's clear this
Speaker 2: place is different.
Speaker 3: Stands out from what the rover had seen before in Jazzero, and.
Speaker 2: The name Bright Angel kind of the ocative comes from
Speaker 2: the Grand Canyon apparently. Yeah, because the rocks there are
Speaker 2: lighter in color.
Speaker 3: That's right. It helps connect it back, makes this alien
Speaker 3: landscape a bit more relatable.
Speaker 2: Doctor Tys, the researcher we mentioned, he said something interesting
Speaker 2: about the team's reaction when they got there. Basically, when
Speaker 2: the rover entered Bright Angel, the team was immediately struck
Speaker 2: by how different the rocks were.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that phrase immediately struck, coming from scientists who've been
Speaker 3: staring at Mars data for years. That tells you something
Speaker 3: significant happened.
Speaker 2: So what was it geologically speaking? What made it so different?
Speaker 3: Well, its location is key. It's right in the nerve
Speaker 3: of a Valis channel, which was a major river flowing
Speaker 3: into the old Jezero Lake. So it's not just some random.
Speaker 2: Spot, okay, so strategically placed exactly.
Speaker 3: And the rocks themselves are mainly these fine grained sedimentary rocks, mudstones,
Speaker 3: mudstones formed from silt and clay carried by water.
Speaker 2: So direct evidence of flowing water depositing material.
Speaker 3: Right you see layering bedding structures. It points to a dynamic,
Speaker 3: persistent water system, a river flowing into a lake, not
Speaker 3: just a puddle, but an active system.
Speaker 2: And on Earth, those kinds of environments are often rich
Speaker 2: in organic stuff.
Speaker 3: And micro precisely, the very rocks there whisper stories of water,
Speaker 3: of flowing rivers, of deposition over time. So Entice and
Speaker 3: the team saw this, that immediate strike makes perfect sense
Speaker 3: they knew they were somewhere fundamentally different.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is where for me, anyway, it gets really good.
Speaker 2: We shift from the rocks themselves to what's in them,
Speaker 2: the chemistry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the instruments on Perseverance started analyzing these bright Angel
Speaker 3: mudstones and they found, well, quite a mix.
Speaker 2: What kind of mix are we talking about.
Speaker 3: We're seeing things like oxidized iron basically rust in different forms,
Speaker 3: phosphorus which is fundamental for DNA and cell membranes, sulfur
Speaker 3: also key for biochemistry, and the big one perhaps organic carbon.
Speaker 2: Now organic carbon we found that on Mars before, right
Speaker 2: from meteorites or maybe volcanoes.
Speaker 3: That's true. Yes, organic carbon itself isn't proof of life.
Speaker 2: So what's different here.
Speaker 3: It's the combination. It's finding the organic carbon together with
Speaker 3: these other elements, the iron, the sulfur, the phosphorus, all
Speaker 3: in these specific mudstones, that particular assemblage and that context.
Speaker 3: That's what grabbed their attention.
Speaker 2: So it's like finding flour, sugar, eggs, and butter all
Speaker 2: in the same bowl, not just scattered around the kitchen.
Speaker 3: That's actually a great analogy. Yes, and this specific chemical
Speaker 3: cocktail as you called it, represents what scientists see as
Speaker 3: a potentially rich source of energy for early microorganisms.
Speaker 2: Okay, connect that to early life on Earth for us,
Speaker 2: How does that work?
Speaker 3: Well, The earliest life on Earth didn't necessarily use sunlight
Speaker 3: like plants do. Many early microbes got energy from chemical imbalances,
Speaker 3: from chemical gradients in their.
Speaker 2: Environment, like eating certain chemicals and breathing others.
Speaker 3: Exactly. It's called chemical cycling. Life basically exploits these energy differences,
Speaker 3: and finding oxidized iron, sulfur, phosphorus, and organic carbon together
Speaker 3: suggests just such an energy imbalance existed.
Speaker 2: There an environment ripe for life to tap into for energy.
Speaker 3: Potentially, Yes, it means the ingredients and the energetic drive
Speaker 3: needed for life using these kinds of chemical reactions could
Speaker 3: have been present on ancient Mars, very similar to conditions
Speaker 3: on early Earth. It's a really tantalizing parallel hashtag taged
Speaker 3: hagetag tag two point two spectrometers, redox reactions, and mineral signatures.
Speaker 2: So finding this chemical buffet is one thing, but how
Speaker 2: do you actually see these microscopic chemical clues from millions
Speaker 2: of miles away. That's where the rovers fancy instruments come in, right,
Speaker 2: looking for things like redox reactions.
Speaker 3: Right, Perseverance has some incredibly sophisticated tools, sherlock, which looks
Speaker 3: for organics and chemicals using ramen and luminescence.
Speaker 2: And PRXL, which maps out the elemental composition using X rays.
Speaker 2: These are basically the rovers chemical eyes.
Speaker 3: Very powerful eyes, and they're looking for evidence of redox reactions,
Speaker 3: those chemical reactions involving the transfer of electrons.
Speaker 2: Why are redox reactions so important in the search for.
Speaker 3: Life because here on Earth, redox reactions are very often
Speaker 3: driven by life itself. Microbs do this constantly for energy
Speaker 3: from metabolism, and in doing so they change their environment
Speaker 3: and leave behind chemical fingerprints.
Speaker 2: So finding signs of lots of redox activity on Mars
Speaker 2: is a big flag up.
Speaker 3: Potentially biological flag. Yes, it makes you stop and look closer.
Speaker 3: And the Rover team found some really striking microscopic features
Speaker 3: in these mudstones, tiny little spheres, nodules, and also these
Speaker 3: reaction fronts, distinct zones where chemical changes happen.
Speaker 2: And these got nicknames right, the poppy seeds and the
Speaker 2: leopard spots.
Speaker 3: Ah. Yes, easier to visualize that way, And importantly, these
Speaker 3: tiny structures were enriched in very specific minerals.
Speaker 2: Okay, what minerals were we talking about?
Speaker 3: Ferris iron phosphate likely a mineral called vivianite, and iron
Speaker 3: sulfide likely gresite.
Speaker 2: Vivinite and greenshitpe. Why are those minerals significant.
Speaker 3: Because both vivianite and greg often form on Earth in
Speaker 3: cool water rich environments, low oxygen, and they're very frequently
Speaker 3: associated with microbial activity, with microbial metabolism.
Speaker 2: So their presence points towards specific environmental conditions possibly linked
Speaker 2: to life exactly.
Speaker 3: And doctor Tys pointed out, it's not just finding the minerals,
Speaker 3: he said, it's how they are arranged in these structures
Speaker 3: that suggest that they formed through the redoc cycling of
Speaker 3: iron and sulfur.
Speaker 2: So the pattern matters as much as the substance.
Speaker 3: Precisely, he pose the key question. On Earth, microbes eat
Speaker 3: organic matter and breathe rust and sulfate forming features like this.
Speaker 3: Could the same thing have happened on Mars?
Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder. It's the arrangement that contexts
Speaker 2: the whole picture that starts to look intriguingly biological.
Speaker 3: It moves beyond just interesting geology towards something well something
Speaker 3: that needs serious consideration as potentially life related.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we have them minerals the structure. Let's go
Speaker 2: back to the organic carbon. The Sherlock instrument detected something
Speaker 2: called the G band.
Speaker 3: Yes, the G band is basically a spectral signature, a
Speaker 3: specific way organic carbon molecules vibrate when hit with Sherlock's laser.
Speaker 3: Think of it like a fingerprint for carbon bonds, a.
Speaker 2: Weight to spot organic molecules, even in tiny amounts exactly.
Speaker 3: But what's really compelling here is where they found the
Speaker 3: strongest signals for this G band. It wasn't just everywhere, No,
Speaker 3: the strongest signals were concentrated at a site they named
Speaker 3: Apollo Temple. And critically, this was the exact same spot
Speaker 3: where the vivianite and gregite, those redocks minerals we just
Speaker 3: talked about were most abundant.
Speaker 2: Wow. So the organic carbon and these specific minerals are
Speaker 2: literally found together, side by side in the rock.
Speaker 3: Precisely. This colocation, this spatial relationship, is a huge piece
Speaker 3: of the puzzle. It's not random.
Speaker 2: What does that closeness actually suggest? Why is finding them
Speaker 2: together so much more powerful than finding them separately?
Speaker 3: Because it strongly implies they were involved in the same processes.
Speaker 3: It suggests an active interaction between the organic matter and
Speaker 3: these minerals during their formation, like they were.
Speaker 2: Part of the same chemical reactions. That's the implication.
Speaker 3: On Earth. Seeing organic matter closely tied to these kinds
Speaker 3: of redox minerals and sediments is often a dead giveaway
Speaker 3: for biological activity. Microbes munch on the organics, drive the
Speaker 3: redox reactions and influence which minerals form right around them.
Speaker 2: Doctor Tys commented on this too, he did.
Speaker 3: He said, this colocation is very compelling. It suggests that
Speaker 3: organic molecules may have played a role in driving the
Speaker 3: chemical reactions that formed these minerals.
Speaker 2: So it paints a picture of a dynamic system potentially
Speaker 2: biologically mediated, rather than just a random collection of chemicals exactly.
Speaker 3: It makes the whole scenario much more coherent and boost
Speaker 3: the case that these weren't just passive ingredients, but active
Speaker 3: participants in potentially life driven cycles.
Speaker 2: Okay, but we need to be really careful here. Say
Speaker 2: organic carbon people instantly think life. But it's not that simple,
Speaker 2: is it.
Speaker 3: Not at all? And doctor Tize made this point very clearly.
Speaker 3: Organic in chemistry just means molecules with carbon bonds. Life
Speaker 3: uses them absolutely, but they can also form.
Speaker 2: Without life, like for meteorites or geological processes deep inside
Speaker 2: a planet.
Speaker 3: Right, Meteorites often contain complex organic molecules, and certain geological
Speaker 3: reactions like sarpentanization can also produce them abiotically, meaning without biology.
Speaker 2: So finding organic carbon on Mars means the building blocks
Speaker 2: were there, but not necessarily life itself.
Speaker 3: Correct. The study basically considers two main possibilities for the
Speaker 3: organic matter they detected. Either it formed through these non
Speaker 3: living abiotic processes, or it was originally produced by living organisms.
Speaker 3: And what we're seeing now is the degraded remains of
Speaker 3: that biological material after billions of years of radiation and
Speaker 3: chemical reactions. The g BAN signature could represent that de
Speaker 3: grated biological carbon.
Speaker 2: Okay, so how do you tell the difference abiotic versus
Speaker 2: biotic origin? That seems like the absolute key question.
Speaker 3: It is the key question, And this is where things
Speaker 3: get really tricky but also very interesting, especially when you
Speaker 3: bring the sulfur minerals back into the picture.
Speaker 2: The greensiite the iron sulfide.
Speaker 3: Yes, while some of the iron features the vivian i
Speaker 3: maybe could potentially form from abiotic reactions involving organic matter
Speaker 3: and iron at lower temperatures. The sulfur minerals are different.
Speaker 2: How so, the.
Speaker 3: Study highlights this known abiotic ways to make features like
Speaker 3: the greggy they observed. These leopard spots usually require pretty
Speaker 3: high temperatures think hydrothermal systems, volcanic activity.
Speaker 2: Okay, but did perseverance see any signs of high heat
Speaker 2: in these bright angel rocks.
Speaker 3: That's the crucial point.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: According to doctor Tye, all the ways we have of
Speaker 3: examining these rocks on the rover suggests that they were
Speaker 3: never heated enough to produce these features abiotically.
Speaker 2: Wow. So the known non biological recipes were heat, but
Speaker 2: the crime scene shows no sign of an oven being
Speaker 2: used exactly.
Speaker 3: That's a fantastic analogy. Again, the lack of evidence for
Speaker 3: high temperatures is what makes the biological explanation so much
Speaker 3: more compelling. For these specific features.
Speaker 2: It's like a process of elimination.
Speaker 3: It is. If the non biological ways we know about
Speaker 3: don't fit the evidence, you have to seriously consider the
Speaker 3: biological alternative, which led doctor Tys to say, and this
Speaker 3: is quite a statement. What did he say if that's
Speaker 3: the case. We have to seriously consider the possibility that
Speaker 3: they were made by creatures like bacteria living in the
Speaker 3: mud in a Martian lake more than three billion years ago.
Speaker 2: That's pretty mind blowing. The lack of heat makes the
Speaker 2: biological case much stronger.
Speaker 3: Much stronger for the specific mineral assemblages. Yes, it doesn't
Speaker 3: prove it, but it significantly elevates the possibility beyond just
Speaker 3: finding generic organic carbon.
Speaker 2: So, okay, the evidence is compelling. The lack of heat,
Speaker 2: the colocation, the specific minerals, it all points in a
Speaker 2: very interesting direction. Yeah, but the team is still careful, right,
Speaker 2: they're chatting we found life.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not scientific rigor demands caution, especially with the claim
Speaker 3: this big. They are very clear this is not definitive.
Speaker 2: Proof, but it does meet NASA's criteria for something specific.
Speaker 3: Yes, it meets the criteria for potential biosignatures.
Speaker 2: And what does that mean exactly for us listening?
Speaker 3: It basically means they've found features chemical mineralogical structural that
Speaker 3: could have been produced by life, but for which abiotic
Speaker 3: explanations haven't been completely ruled out yet. It signals that
Speaker 3: this warrants serious, focused further investigation.
Speaker 2: So It's like a very strong lead in a detective case,
Speaker 2: not the conviction, but something you absolutely have to follow
Speaker 2: up on.
Speaker 3: That's a good way to think about it. It's saying
Speaker 3: this looks promising, it smells like life based on what
Speaker 3: we know from Earth. Now we need to do the
Speaker 3: really hard work to confirm or refute it.
Speaker 2: And that caution is crucial, right. You don't want to
Speaker 2: jump the gun on something this monumental.
Speaker 3: Absolutely essential. False positives can be incredibly damaging to the science.
Speaker 3: So the term potential is key. It acknowledges the evidence,
Speaker 3: but respects the high burden of proof.
Speaker 2: Needed, which brings us to the next logical question, how
Speaker 2: do you get from potential to proven? The rover's done
Speaker 2: amazing work, but it has limits.
Speaker 3: It does the instruments are incredible feats of engineering miniaturized
Speaker 3: labs on another planet, but they can't match the power
Speaker 3: and sophistication of labs here on Earth.
Speaker 2: So to really nail this.
Speaker 3: Down, to really nail this down, to definitively distinguish a
Speaker 3: biotic from biotic, the overwhelming consensus is we need those
Speaker 3: rocks back here on Earth. We need to bring Mars.
Speaker 2: Home, and perseverance has been collecting samples all along, as
Speaker 2: in it little cores of rock.
Speaker 3: Yes, diligently caching them for a potential future return mission.
Speaker 2: And crucially it collected one from this exact area from
Speaker 2: the bright Angel formation.
Speaker 3: That's right, a core sample names Sapphire Canyon. It's sealed
Speaker 3: in a tube safe on the rover, waiting, waiting for
Speaker 3: a ride back to Earth potentially. Yes, And this Sapphire
Speaker 3: Canyon sample is considered high priority for return. It's literally
Speaker 3: a piece of this intriguing puzzle.
Speaker 2: Holding secrets from Bright Angel. That sample could be the key,
Speaker 2: couldn't it?
Speaker 3: It really could be. Bringing it back is well indispensable
Speaker 3: for the next phase. Earth labs have instruments orders of
Speaker 3: magnitude more sensitive and capable than anything we can realistically
Speaker 3: send to Mars.
Speaker 2: What kind of tests could we do here that Perseverance
Speaker 2: can't do there?
Speaker 3: Oh, a whole suite of things for starters. Isotopic analysis
Speaker 3: of the organic carbon life often prefers lighter isotopes, leaving
Speaker 3: a specific signature that's hard for abiotic processes to mimic.
Speaker 3: That could be a game changer. Okay, what else we
Speaker 3: could do? Incredibly detailed mineralogy, looking at the crystal structures,
Speaker 3: the tiny intergrowths between minerals, maybe even using electron microscopes.
Speaker 3: That tells you a lot about how they formed. Searching
Speaker 3: for specific molecules exactly, looking for complex biomarkers, molecules that
Speaker 3: are uniquely produced by life, much more specific than just
Speaker 3: organic carbon. And then the ultimate, although very difficult, searching
Speaker 3: for actual microfossils tiny shapes or textures that look like
Speaker 3: fossilized cells.
Speaker 2: Wow, and the temperature question. Can we test that more
Speaker 2: definitively here?
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, we could perform much more precise tests on
Speaker 3: the sample itself to determine the maximum temperature it ever experienced.
Speaker 3: If those tests confirm it stayed cool, that dramatically strengthens
Speaker 3: the case against high temperature abiotic formation for those sulfur minerals.
Speaker 2: So Sapphire Canyon isn't just a rock. It's potentially our
Speaker 2: best chance to get the ground truth to really understand
Speaker 2: what happened in that ancient Martian lake.
Speaker 3: It represents our most direct path to potentially answering one
Speaker 3: of humanity's biggest questions.
Speaker 2: So, stepping back a bit, we've gone deep into the
Speaker 2: geology the chemistry, the sample return. What's the bigger picture here,
Speaker 2: How does this Martian story connect back to Earth.
Speaker 3: It connects in a really profound way. Actually, doctor Tis
Speaker 3: highlighted this. He said, what's fascinating is how life may
Speaker 3: have been making use of some of the same process
Speaker 3: is on Earth and Mars at around the same time, the.
Speaker 2: Same processes around the same time. That's huge, it.
Speaker 3: Is it suggests that the fundamental ways life harnesses energy,
Speaker 3: these metabolic strategies involving iron, sulfur, organic carbon, maybe they
Speaker 3: aren't unique to Earth. Maybe they're more universal, like.
Speaker 2: A common toolkit for early life wherever it might arise.
Speaker 3: That's the implication. If you have liquid water, the right chemicals,
Speaker 3: energy gradients, maybe life tends to find similar solutions. It
Speaker 3: could point towards convergent evolution or even just fundamental biochemical
Speaker 3: pathways that work well in planetary environments.
Speaker 2: And the same time part, yeah, we're talking billions of
Speaker 2: years ago, right, Both planets.
Speaker 3: Were young, exactly roughly three to four billion years ago.
Speaker 3: Tiz points out, we see evidence of microorganisms reacting iron
Speaker 3: and sulfur with organic matter in the same way, and
Speaker 3: rocks at the same age on.
Speaker 2: Earth, So It's not just a modern comparison. It's looking
Speaker 2: back to the dawn of life in the Solar System.
Speaker 3: Precisely, the idea that similar life support processes might have
Speaker 3: been happening concurrently on two different planets. It's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 3: It challenges the idea that life is some kind of
Speaker 3: cosmic fluke.
Speaker 2: It suggests maybe life is a more I don't know,
Speaker 2: predictable outcome if the conditions are right.
Speaker 3: That's certainly one interpretation, and a very exciting one.
Speaker 2: But there's a twist, isn't there? Even if the processes
Speaker 2: were similar back then, we don't see these exact, same
Speaker 2: delicate features preserved perfectly in Earth's oldest rocks today. Why not?
Speaker 3: Ah, that comes down to geology. Earth is geologically very active.
Speaker 3: We have plate tectonics.
Speaker 4: Our crust is constantly moving, recycling itself exactly, and that
Speaker 4: process subduction mountain building burial, involves immense heat and pressure.
Speaker 4: As Tys put it, this processing by plate tectonics has
Speaker 4: heated all our rocks too much to preserve them this way.
Speaker 2: So Earth's geological activity basically erases these kinds of fine
Speaker 2: scale details over billions of years.
Speaker 3: It largely does, Yes, any delicate mineral structures or subtle
Speaker 3: chemical signatures from that far back are usually altered, cooked,
Speaker 3: or completely destroyed. It's like trying to read a three
Speaker 3: billion year old message written on tissue paper that's been
Speaker 3: through a furnace.
Speaker 2: But Mars. Mars is different.
Speaker 3: Mars is different. It mostly lacks active planet wide plate tectonics.
Speaker 3: Its ancient crust is much more stable, much less.
Speaker 2: Process So areas like Jesuo Crater have just sat there
Speaker 2: relatively undisturbed for billions of years.
Speaker 3: Largely, yes, they haven't experienced the same intense heating and
Speaker 3: alteration as equivalent aged rocks on Earth. That's why Tys
Speaker 3: called it a special and spectacular thing to be able
Speaker 3: to see them like this on another planet.
Speaker 2: So Mars is like a geological time capsule, preserving a
Speaker 2: record of early planetary conditions that Earth has mostly lost.
Speaker 3: That's exactly it. Mars offers this unique, almost pristine window
Speaker 3: into the period when life might have been emerging, both
Speaker 3: there and here. Studying Mars gives us a chance to
Speaker 3: see what that early environment and potentially early life looks
Speaker 3: like in a way we simply can't on our own
Speaker 3: geologically dynamic planet.
Speaker 2: It could teach us not just about Mars, but about
Speaker 2: the fundamental processes of life's origins anywhere potentially.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's an unparalleled opportunity. Hashtag tag tag outro.
Speaker 2: Well, what an incredible journey We've gone from perseverance navigating
Speaker 2: Martian dunes to the discovery of these fascinating poppy seeds
Speaker 2: and leopard spots in the bright Angel formation. We've talkt chemistry, geology,
Speaker 2: redox reactions.
Speaker 3: And that critical distinction between organic matter and actual signs
Speaker 3: of life.
Speaker 2: Right and the immense promise held within that tiny Sapphire
Speaker 2: Canyon sample waiting for its trip home. It really underscores
Speaker 2: the meticulous, careful nature of this science.
Speaker 3: It does. These potential biosignatures aren't proof, but they are
Speaker 3: compelling enough to make us ask those huge questions.
Speaker 2: Questions about our place in the universe, about how unique
Speaker 2: Earth really is. If we do eventually confirm life arose
Speaker 2: on Mars, even simple microbial life billions of years ago,
Speaker 2: what is tell us?
Speaker 3: That's the profound question, isn't it? If life started independently
Speaker 3: on two planets right next door to each other, using
Speaker 3: similar chemistry around the same time, does that suggest life
Speaker 3: isn't a miracle, but maybe a common occurrence, a natural
Speaker 3: consequence of planetary evolution. Given the right stuff, it changes everything.
Speaker 3: It could fundamentally shift our cosmic perspective. So think about
Speaker 3: those tiny features, the poppy seeds, the leopard spots. What
Speaker 3: if they really are the faint fossilized whispers of ancient
Speaker 3: Martian organisms preserved for eons? What secrets does Sapphire Canyon
Speaker 3: truly hold? Answering that well, that will be one of
Speaker 3: science's greatest adventures.
Speaker 2: A truly mind bending thought to leave us with. Thank
Speaker 2: you for joining us on this deep dive today.
Speaker 3: Always fascinating to explore.
Speaker 5: The seas, the nations. Sai yousssssss