MADRID, November 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
meteorites from mars contain evidence that 4,500 million years ago there was enough water on the red planet to be covered entirely by an ocean 300 meters deep.
“At that moment, Mars was bombarded with ice-filled asteroids. It happened in the first 100 million years of the planet’s evolution. Another interesting angle is that the asteroids also transported organic molecules that are biologically important for life,” says it’s a statement Professor Martin Bizzarro of the Center for Star and Planet Formation, who has led research on isotopes in Martian meteorites.
In addition to water, icy asteroids also brought biologically relevant molecules, such as amino acids, to the Red Planet. Amino acids are used when DNA and RNA form bases that contain everything a cell needs.
The study was published in Science Advances.
The new study indicates that the oceans that covered the entire planet in water were at least 300 meters deep. It is possible that they were up to a kilometer deep. By comparison, there is actually very little water on Earth.explains Martin Bizzarro.
“This happened within the first 100 million years of Mars. After this period, something catastrophic happened to potential life on Earth. It is believed that there was a gigantic collision between Earth and another planet the size of Mars. It was an energetic collision that formed the Earth-Moon system and, at the same time, wiped out all potential life on Earth,” says Martin Bizzarro.
So the researchers have really strong evidence that the conditions that allowed life to arise were present on Mars long before they were on Earth.
It was by means of a meteorite that is billions of years old that the researchers were able to observe the past history of Mars. The meteorite was once part of the original crust of Mars and offers a unique insight into what happened at the time the solar system was formed.
The whole secret is hidden in the way the surface of Mars was created, and of which the meteorite was once a part, because it is a surface that does not move. On Earth it is opposite. The tectonic plates are in perpetual motion and are recycled inside the planet.
“Plate tectonics on Earth erased all evidence of what happened in the first 500 million years of our planet’s history. Plates are constantly moving and are being recycled and destroyed within our planet. On the contrary, Mars has no tectonic plates. so the surface of the planet preserves a record of the earliest history of the planet“, explains Martin Bizzarro.