The hunt for life on Mars continues, with NASA’s latest rover Perseverance
using its scientific instrumentation to scan the Jezero Crater, an area
believed to be a dried up ancient lake, for any signs of ancient microbial
life.
But according to an international team of researchers, the space agencies
other rovers may have already found signs of relatively advanced life — in
the form of “fungus-like Martian specimens,” according to a new paper
published in the journal Advances in Microbiology.
The team, which includes researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics and George Mason University, believes they have found
photographic evidence of a variety of fungus-like organisms, some resembling
the shape of puffballs, a round cloud-like fungus found in abundance back
here on Earth, on the Red Planet.
Their evidence: images taken by NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers as
well as the agency’s HiRISE high-resolution camera attached to the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter.
“Fungi thrive in radiation intense environments,” the team writes in its
paper. “Sequential photos document that fungus-like Martian specimens emerge
from the soil and increase in size, including those resembling puffballs.”
“After obliteration of spherical specimens by the rover wheels, new
sphericals — some with stalks — appeared atop the crests of old tracks,” the
researchers write.
The team went so far as to say that “black fungi-bacteria-like specimens
also appeared atop the rovers.”
They didn’t stop there: the team also examined photos taken by NASA’s
HiRISE, and found evidence for “amorphous specimens within a crevice” that
“changed shape and location then disappeared.”
“It is well established that a variety of terrestrial organisms survive
Mars-like conditions,” the team concludes. “Given the likelihood Earth has
been seeding Mars with life and life has been repeatedly transferred between
worlds, it would be surprising if there was no life on Mars.”
The team argues that these Martian lifeforms “would have evolved on and
already be adapted to the low temperatures, intermittent availability of
water, low amounts of free oxygen, and high levels of radiation.”
The researchers did caveat their findings, pointing out that “similarities
in morphology are not proof of life,” and that “we cannot completely rule
out minerals, weathering, and unknown geological forces that are unique to
Mars and unknown and alien to Earth.”
But it’s a wild conclusion nonetheless. The researchers’ peers will
likely go over the paper with a fine-toothed comb, and likely shred the
results — it’s not every day that researchers are willing to stick out their
necks and claim to have found evidence of life on Mars.
Reference:
Joseph, Rhawn & Armstrong, Richard & Wei, Xinli & Gibson, Carl
& Planchon, Olivier & Duvall, David & Elewa, Ashraf & Duxbury,
Natalia & Rabb, H & Latif, Khalid & Schild, Rudolph. (2021). Fungi
on Mars? Evidence of Growth and Behavior From Sequential Images. Advances in
Microbiology. 11.