Meteorite Yields Evidence of Primitive Life on Early Mars
Release: 96-160
August 7, 1996
James Hartsfield
Johnson Space Center
(713) 483-5111
David Salsbury
Stanford University
(415) 723-2558
A NASA research team of scientists at the Johnson Space Center and at
Stanford University has found evidence that strongly suggests primitive
life may have existed on Mars more than 3.6 billion years ago.
The NASA-funded team found the first organic molecules thought to be
of Martian origin; several mineral features characteristic of biological
activity; and possible microscopic fossils of primitive, bacteria-like
organisms inside of an ancient Martian rock that fell to Earth as a
meteorite. This array of indirect evidence of past life will be reported
in the Aug. 16 issue of the journal Science, presenting the
investigation to the scientific community at large to
reach a future consensus that will either confirm or deny the team's
conclusion.
The two-year investigation was co-led by planetary scientists
Dr. David McKay, Dr. Everett Gibson and Kathie Thomas-Keprta of
Lockheed-Martin, all from JSC, with the major collaboration of a
Stanford team headed by Professor of Chemistry Dr. Richard Zare, as well
as six other NASA and university research partners.
"There is not any one finding that leads us to believe that this is
evidence of past life on Mars. Rather, it is a combination of many things
that we have found," McKay said. "They include Stanford's detection of an
apparently unique pattern of organic molecules, carbon compounds that are
the basis of life. We also found several unusual mineral phases that are
known products of primitive microscopic organisms on Earth. Structures that
could be microsopic fossils seem to support all of this. The relationship
of all of these things in terms of location 'within a few hundred
thousandths of an inch of one another' is the most compelling evidence."
"It is very difficult to prove life existed 3.6 billion years ago on
Earth, let alone on Mars," Zare said. "The existing standard of proof,
which we think we have met, includes having an accurately dated sample
that contains native microfossils, mineralogical features characteristic
of life, and evidence of complex organic chemistry."
"For two years, we have applied state-of-the-art technology to perform
these analyses, and we believe we have found quite reasonable evidence of
past life on Mars," Gibson added. "We don't claim that we have conclusively
proven it. We are putting this evidence out to the scientific community
for other investigators to verify, enhance, attack -- disprove if they can --
as part of the scientific process. Then, within a year or two, we hope to
resolve the question one way or the other."
"What we have found to be the most reasonable interpretation is of such
radical nature that it will only be accepted or rejected after other groups
either confirm our findings or overturn them," McKay added.
The igneous rock in the 4.2-pound, potato-sized meteorite has been
age-dated to about 4.5 billion years, the period when the planet Mars
formed. The rock is believed to have originated underneath the Martian
surface and to have been extensively fractured by impacts as meteorites
bombarded the planets in the early inner solar system. Between 3.6 billion
and 4 billion years ago, a time when it is generally thought that the planet
was warmer and wetter, water is believed to have penetrated fractures in
the subsurface rock, possibly forming an underground water system.
Because the water was saturated with carbon dioxide from the Martian
atmosphere, carbonate minerals were deposited in the fractures. The team's
findings indicate living organisms may also have assisted in the formation
of the carbonate, and some remains of the microscopic organisms may have
become fossilized, in a fashion similar to the formation of fossils in
limestone on Earth. Then, 15 million years ago, a huge comet or asteroid
struck Mars, ejecting a piece of the rock from its subsurface location with
enough force to escape the planet. For millions of years, the chunk of rock
floated through space. It encountered Earth's atmosphere 13,000 years ago
and fell in Antarctica as a meteorite.
It is in the tiny globs of carbonate that the researchers found a
number of features that can be interpreted as suggesting past life.
Stanford found easily detectable amounts of organic molecules called
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) concentrated in the vicinity
of the carbonate. Researchers at JSC found mineral compounds commonly
associated with microscopic organisms and the possible microscopic fossil
structures.
The largest of the possible fossils are less than 1/100th the diameter
of a human hair, and most are about 1/1000th the diameter of a human hair
small enough that it would take about a thousand laid end-to-end to span
the dot at the end of this sentence. Some are egg-shaped while others are
tubular. In appearance and size, the structures are strikingly similiar to
microscopic fossils of the tiniest bacteria found on Earth.
The meteorite, called ALH84001, was found in 1984 in Allan Hills ice
field, Antarctica, by an annual expedition of the National Science
Foundation's Antarctic Meterorite Program. It was preserved for study in
JSC's Meteorite Processing Laboratory and its possible Martian origin was
not recognized until 1993. It is one of only 12 meteorites identified so
far that match the unique Martian chemistry measured by the Viking
spacecraft that landed on Mars in 1976. ALH84001 is by far the oldest of
the 12 Martian meteorites, more than three times as old as any other.
Many of the team's findings were made possible only because of very
recent technological advances in high-resolution scanning electron
microscopy and laser mass spectrometry. Only a few years ago, many of the
features that they report were undetectable. Although past studies of this
meteorite and others of Martian origin failed to detect evidence of past
life, they were generally performed using lower levels of magnification,
without the benefit of the technology used in this research. The recent discovery of extremely small bacteria on Earth, called nanobacteria,
prompted the team to perform this work at a much finer scale than past
efforts.
The nine authors of the Science report include McKay, Gibson
and Thomas-Keprta of JSC; Christopher Romanek, formerly a National
Research Council post-doctoral fellow at JSC who is now a staff scientist
at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory at the University of Georgia;
Hojatollah Vali, a National Research Council post-doctoral fellow at JSC
and a staff scientist at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada;
and Zare, graduate students Simon J. Clemett and Claude R. Maechling and
post-doctoral student Xavier Chillier of the Stanford University
Department of Chemistry.
The team of researchers includes a wide variety of expertise,
including microbiology, mineralogy, analytical techniques, geochemistry
and organic chemistry, and the analysis crossed all of these disciplines.
Further details on the findings presented in the Science article include:
Researchers at Stanford University used a laser mass spectrometer --
the most sensitive instrument of its type in the world – to look for the
presence of the common family of organic molecules called PAHs. When
microorganisms die, the complex organic molecules that they contain
frequently degrade into PAHs. PAHs are often associated with ancient
sedimentary rocks, coals and petroleum on Earth and can be common air pollutants. Not only did the scientists find PAHs in easily detectable
amounts in ALH84001, but they found that these molecules were
concentrated in the vicinity of the carbonate globules. This finding appears
consistent with the proposition that they are a result of the fossilization
process. In addtion, the unique composition of the meteorite's PAHs is
consistent with what the scientists expect from the fossilization of very
primitive microorganisms. On Earth, PAHs virtually always occur in thousands
of forms, but, in the meteorite, they are dominated by only about a
half-dozen different compounds. The simplicity of this mixture, combined
with the lack of light-weight PAHs like napthalene, also differs
substantially from that of PAHs previously measured in non-Martian meteorites.
The team found unusual compounds -- iron sulfides and magnetite -- that
are commonly produced by anaerobic bacteria and other microscopic organisms
on Earth. The compounds were found in locations directly associated with the
fossil-like structures and carbonate globules in the meteorite. Extreme
conditions -- conditions very unlikely to have been encountered by the
meteorite -- would have been required to produce these compounds in close
proximity to one another if life were not involved. The carbonate also
contained tiny grains of magnetite that are almost identical to magnetic
fossil remnants often left by certain bacteria found on Earth. Other minerals
commonly associated with biological activity on Earth were found in the
carbonate as well.
The formation of the carbonate or fossils by living organisms while the
meteorite was in the Antarctic was deemed unlikely for several reasons. The
carbonate was age dated using a parent-daughter isotope method and found to
be 3.6 billion years old, and the organic molecules were first detected
well within the ancient carbonate. In addition, the team analyzed
representative samples of other meteorites from Antarctica and found no
evidence of fossil-like structures, organic molecules or possible
biologically produced compounds and minerals similiar to those in the
ALH84001 meteorite. The composition and location of PAHs
organic molecules found in the meteorite also appeared to confirm that
the possible evidence of life was extraterrestrial. No PAHs were found in
the meteorite's exterior crust, but the concentration of PAHs increased in the
meteorite's interior to levels higher than ever found in Antarctica. Higher
concentrations of PAHs would have likely been found on the exterior of the
meteorite, decreasing toward the interior, if the organic molecules are the
result of contamination of the meteorite on Earth.