A new study has found that a Martian meteorite that fell to Earth 12 years ago contains many
The Tissint meteorite split in the sky abovethe city of the same name in Morocco on July 18, 2011. Fragments of space rock were scattered across the desert. It formed on Mars hundreds of millions of years ago. It was likely ejected from the Red Planet as a result of a collision with an asteroid before it entered the Earth's gravitational field.
In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers analyzed meteorite fragments and found examples of at least five different types of organic compounds.
Organic compounds are moleculeswhich contain carbon atoms bonded to atoms of one or other elements—usually hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur. There are a lot of these compounds in all forms of life on Earth. This means that their presence in space rocks potentially indicates the existence of life on other objects in the solar system. However, some organic compounds can also be formed as a result of non-biological processes. Therefore, scientists do not know for sure whether such compounds are a sign of life on other planets.
The study showed that the Tissint meteoritecontains organic magnesium compounds. It is noteworthy that they had not previously been detected in Martian samples and “should not be there.” Scientists believe that these compounds formed under the high-pressure and high-temperature conditions of Mars' ancient mantle (the layer beneath the Martian crust). This means that they are not biological and provide the key to understanding how the interior of the Red Planet was formed.
Researchers also discovered several other compounds in the meteorite:
• aliphatic branched carboxylic acids are compounds whose structure is similar to the amino acids that make up proteins;
• aldehydes are compounds in which carbon shares a double bond or several electrons with an oxygen atom;
• olefins or hydrocarbons with one or more carbon atoms linked by a double bond to each other;
• polyaromatic hydrocarbons are complex hydrocarbons containing multiple ring structures.
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