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As Elton John once sang , " Mars ai n’t the kind of lieu to raise your tike ; in fact , it ’s cold as hell . " But new research suggests that Martian chill could allow bacteria to survive for up to 280 million years below the planet ’s surface .
The determination raises hope that tincture of ancient life — or even viable being in suspended vivification — could be retrieve on the Red Planet someday .
D. radiodurans (affectionately known as “Conan the Bacterium”) is particularly well-suited to surviving Mars' harsh environment.
In the report , scientist encounter that an Earth bacterium , Deinococcus radiodurans , is so resistive to radiation that it can deal the equivalent of 280 million year of the radiation sickness represent 33 feet ( 10 meters ) below the Martian control surface . The plucky picayune micro-organism , which has been found thriving in nuclear reactors on Earth , could even last 1.5 million years on the Martian surface , which is always bombarded with cosmic and solar irradiation .
Related : Could life on Mars be bushwhack deep underground ?
The winder to this survival is Mars ' dry , insensate environment . When dried-out and quick-frozen to minus 110.2 grade Fahrenheit ( minus 79 academic degree Celsius ) — the temperature of wry ice and the higher - parallel of latitude regions ofMars — D. radiodurans"become phenomenally , astronomically radiation - insubordinate , " tell study aged authorMichael Daly , a geneticist and radiation biology expert at Uniformed Services University in Maryland .
NASA’s Perseverance rover investigates a rocky outcrop in Mars' Jezero Crater, looking for potential signs of ancient microbial life.
Resisting radiation
D. radioduranshas long been experience to be a title-holder at resisting radiation . It ’s found in the human gut and in many other places on Earth , and has evensurvived for year in the vacuum of space . The new research , however , is the first endeavour to test the bacterium ’s upper limit of radiation resistor when it ’s in a dried body politic . Previously , scientist had encounter that the bacterium can stand firm 25,000 grays of radiation when in a liquified culture , Daly state Live Science . For equivalence , a dose of 5 grayness would kill a homo .
Daly and his fellow dried and frozeD. radioduransand then bombarded the bacterium with both gamma radiotherapy and proton radiation , mimicking cosmic radiation from cryptic space and solar radiotherapy from the Sunday . They get that dried and frozenD. radioduranscould survive a judgement - flabbergast 140,000 Robert Gray of radiation . That ’s equivalent to the dose from 1.5 million eld on the Martian Earth’s surface and 280 million years 33 foot beneath the airfoil , where the only radioactivity is from the radioactive decay within rocks and minerals .
The organisms survive irradiation in two way , study co - authorBrian Hoffman , a chemist at Northwestern University , told Live Science . First , they have multiple copies of their genomes , ply a backup for any bits damaged by radiation . secondly , they accumulate large quantity of manganese antioxidants , which capture damaging particle created by radiation syndrome . The capture of these molecules prevent damage to the protein that do DNA stamping ground for the organism .
" The DNA is organized to be restore , and these manganese antioxidants protect the proteins that do the repair , " Hoffman order .
Life on Mars
D. radioduransevolved on Earth , where the atmosphere protect the planet and its organism from the bad radiation . ( The bacteria probably evolved to withstand scathe during juiceless menstruation , and the radiation therapy immunity is just a side consequence of that evolution , Daly said . ) Any Martian bacterium would have had to acquire in an environment without that tribute and belike would have had to develop similar radiation resistance , Hoffman said .
Mars has not had far-flung liquified water for2 billion eld , so even if ancient life did evolve there , 280 million eld is still too short to advise that the planet hosts a embarrassment of bacteria just waiting to take form back to life . But because Mars has a very thin atmosphere , meteorites rain onto the major planet ’s surface on a regular basis , Daly said . The heat and liquid weewee released by those impact could potentially wake up torpid bacterium in the subsurface and allow for a temporary flourishing of life story .
Even if this irregular oasis theory is n’t lawful , the long - live on electric potential of bacteria on Mars means that bits and pieces of ancient spirit could still be present as traces in the rocks , Hoffman said . desoxyribonucleic acid and other signature of life could be as fragments , even if the organisms were long - dead .
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The findings also have implication for preventing Mars from becoming contaminated with Earth bacteria , agree to the study author . AnyD. radioduransthat hitch a drive on aMars roverwould probably hold up the trip from Earth to the Red Planet . ( Other microorganisms , such asEscherichia coliand someBacillusspecies , could also last thousands of years on the Martian Earth’s surface if dry and desiccated , the researchers found . )
As more missions aim to return samples from Mars to Earth , it will be authoritative to ensure that Earth microorganisms are n’t accidentally hauled to Mars and then mistaken for extraterrestrials , saidJohn Rummel , a senior scientist at the SETI Institute and former planetary shelter officer forNASA . Rummel was not involve in the new study , but he oversaw its editing at the journalAstrobiology .
" The round - trip tourer organism is a problem here , " Rummel suppose . " And we have to be measured about how we consider with that . "
