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Life on Mars? Scientists take major step in finding out

Lindsay Deutsch
USA TODAY Network
In this image released Dec. 16, 2014, by NASA, Mars rover Curiosity drilled into this rock target, "Cumberland," on May 19, 2013, and collected a powdered sample of material from the rock's interior. Researchers announced that the Curiosity rover measured a tenfold spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory's drill.

Scientists are a major step closer to figuring out whether there is, or was, life on Mars.

In findings that are the culmination of a decade of work by more than 1,000 people, NASA announced Tuesday that the Mars Curiosity found chemistry on the planet in the form of organics and methane.

Organics indicate there could have been life in the past (think billions of years ago), and the presence of methane indicates that there could be activity now.

"We can't rule out the possibility of life on Mars now," said Danny Glavin, a Mars Science Lab participating scientist at NASA. "It's really exciting. There are other explanations, of course — they could come from asteroids or comets, or non-biological reactions."

"But the other possibility is that we're looking at the chemical fingerprint of a Martian Biotia that died out."

The next step to detect whether the organic findings do indicate life, Glavin says, is a wet chemistry experiment that allows us to target molecules that are important to life on Earth like amino acids and the bases that make up our DNA.

At the same time, the methane discovery was made by using the Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars laboratory 12 times during a 20-month period from 2013 to 2014, according to NASA. Four measurements showed the level at seven parts per billion; before that, they had reached only one-tenth, the report stated.

"The methane results tell us Mars is active even now, because we see it from some venting source," said Glavin.

The origin of the methane will take further testing. "It could come from water-rock processes, but there could be life even today in the subsurface, and we don't know until we do additional testing," Glavin said.

Regardless, it's certainly an exciting time in the space community.

"On a scale from 1-10, this is the next best thing other than conclusive signs of life," Glavin said.

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