Thursday, 5 September 2024.
Carbon (18.5%) is the second most abundant element in the human body, behind oxygen (65%) and followed by hydrogen (9.5%).
Before talking about Mars, something about our planet Earth, through 4 phrases that appear in the fantastic documentary “Carbon: The Unauthorised Biography”.
By the way, as the first two posts this week were about geology …
and
… We begin with a quote from geologist Bob Hazen:
(1) “Every one of us lives in a carbon world. We have to learn to get along with carbon. And she's very happy to get along with us if we treat her right.”
But also the phrases, respectively, from a historian, a climate scientist and an ecologist:
(2) “We've developed this relationship with carbon that has benefited us humans in many, many powerful ways… We now have the feeling that we're managing a planet, but what we're beginning to learn is that we're in a lot less control of things than we thought. And the power itself is dangerous” David Christian.
(3) “Carbon has gone from being a benevolent force, a protector of the earth system in a stable state, but now she’s being released and increasing in the atmosphere. She is becoming a destroyer” Will Steffen.
(4) “The carbon cycle shows that we're all irretrievably connected … we're all in this together”, Suzanne Simard.
So what did NASA find intriguing about carbon on Mars?
Researchers on the Curiosity rover found that nearly half of their samples (Gale Crater) had surprisingly large amounts of carbon-12 compared to what scientists measured in the Martian atmosphere and meteorites.
What happens is that living creatures on Earth use the carbon-12 atom - smaller and lighter - to metabolize food or for photosynthesis. Versus the heavier carbon-13 atom.
“On Earth, the processes that would produce the carbon signal we are detecting on Mars are biological,” say the scientists.
“We have to understand if the same explanation works for Mars, or if there are other explanations”. Mars may have started with a different mix of carbon isotopes to those on Earth 4.5 billion years ago. Mars is smaller, colder, has weaker gravity and different gases in its atmosphere. Furthermore, carbon on Mars could be circulating without any life involved.
“There's a big part of the Earth's carbon cycle that involves life, and because of life, there's a part of the Earth's carbon cycle that we can't understand, because everywhere we look there's life,” said Andrew Steele, scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC.
Click on the image below to learn more on the NASA Mars Mission portal. You'll notice other intriguing topics such as methane... and oxygen.
And here for the documentary's official website (we watched it on NatGeo) or here to watch two trailers on YouTube.
