Journal ArticleDOI
The Delivery of Organic Matter from Asteroids and Comets to the Early Surface of Mars
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this paper, it was shown that interplanetary dust particles may have been an important source of pre-biotic organic matter (Anders, 1989) and that inter-planetary carbon was delivered to the Earth by inter-surface dust particles, leading to a higher surface concentration of carbon on Mars than onto Earth.Abstract:
Carbon delivered to the Earth by interplanetary dust particles may have been an important source of pre-biotic organic matter (Anders, 1989). Interplanetary dust is shown to deliver an order-of-magnitude higher surface concentration of carbon onto Mars than onto Earth, suggesting interplanetary dust may be an important source of carbon on Mars as well.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Detection of Methane in the Atmosphere of Mars
Vittorio Formisano,Sushil K. Atreya,Thérèse Encrenaz,Nikolai Ignatiev,Nikolai Ignatiev,Marco Giuranna +5 more
TL;DR: A detection of methane in the martian atmosphere by the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer onboard the Mars Express spacecraft is reported, and the global average methane mixing ratio is found to be 10 ± 5 parts per billion by volume.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Sample Analysis at Mars Investigation and Instrument Suite
Paul R. Mahaffy,Chris Webster,Michel Cabane,Pamela G. Conrad,Patrice Coll,Sushil K. Atreya,Robert Arvey,Michael Barciniak,Mehdi Benna,L. Bleacher,William B. Brinckerhoff,Jennifer L. Eigenbrode,Daniel Carignan,Mark Cascia,Robert A. Chalmers,Jason P. Dworkin,Therese Errigo,Paula Everson,Heather B. Franz,Rodger Farley,Steven Feng,Gregory Frazier,Caroline Freissinet,Daniel P. Glavin,D. N. Harpold,Douglas L. Hawk,Vincent Holmes,Christopher S. Johnson,Andrea Jones,Patrick R. Jordan,James W. Kellogg,Jesse Lewis,Eric Lyness,Charles Malespin,David Martin,John Maurer,Amy McAdam,Douglas McLennan,T. Nolan,Marvin Noriega,Alexander A. Pavlov,B. D. Prats,E. Raaen,Oren E. Sheinman,D. Sheppard,James Smith,Jennifer C. Stern,Florence Tan,Melissa G. Trainer,Douglas W. Ming,Richard V. Morris,John H. Jones,Cindy Gundersen,Andrew Steele,James J. Wray,Oliver Botta,Laurie A. Leshin,Tobias Owen,Steve Battel,Bruce M. Jakosky,H. L. K. Manning,Steven W. Squyres,Rafael Navarro-González,Christopher P. McKay,François Raulin,Robert Sternberg,Arnaud Buch,Paul Sorensen,Robert Kline-Schoder,David Coscia,Cyril Szopa,Samuel Teinturier,Curt Baffes,Jason Feldman,Greg Flesch,Siamak Forouhar,Ray Garcia,Didier Keymeulen,Steve Woodward,Bruce P. Block,Ken Arnett,Ryan M. Miller,Charles Edmonson,Stephen Gorevan,E. Mumm +84 more
TL;DR: The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) investigation of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) addresses the chemical and isotopic composition of the atmosphere and volatiles extracted from solid samples.
Journal ArticleDOI
Detection of methane in the martian atmosphere: evidence for life?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used the Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFIHT) to detect the absorption by martian methane at a 3.7 sigma level, which is exactly centered in the summed spectrum.
Journal ArticleDOI
The missing organic molecules on Mars.
TL;DR: Experiments show that one of these, benzenehexacarboxylic acid (mellitic acid), is generated by oxidation of organic matter known to come to Mars, is rather stable to further oxidation, and would not have been easily detected by the Viking experiments.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The search for organic substances and inorganic volatile compounds in the surface of Mars
Klaus Biemann,John Oro,Priestley Toulmin,Leslie E. Orgel,Alfred O. Nier,D. M. Anderson,P. G. Simmonds,D. A. Flory,A. V. Diaz,D. R. Rushneck,J. E. Biller,A. L. Lafleur +11 more
TL;DR: A total of four Martian samples, one surface and one subsurface sample at each of the two Viking landing sites, Chryse Planitia and Utopia Planitia, have been analyzed for organic compounds by a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cometary delivery of organic molecules to the early Earth.
TL;DR: A comprehensive treatment of comet-asteroid interaction with the atmosphere, surface impact, and resulting organic pyrolysis demonstrates that organics will not survive impacts at velocities greater than about 10 kilometers per second and that even comets and asteroids as small as 100 meters in radius cannot be aerobraked to below this velocity in 1-bar atmospheres.
Journal ArticleDOI
Formation of Martian flood features by release of water from confined aquifers
TL;DR: In this paper, it is proposed that the rapid release of water under great pressure from deeply buried aquifers is responsible for the formation of the Martian channels suggestive of catastrophic flooding (outflow channels).
Journal ArticleDOI
Pre-biotic organic matter from comets and asteroids
TL;DR: About 20 g cm−2 intact organic carbon may have accumulated in the few hundred million years between the last cataclysmic impact and the beginning of life, which may have included some biologically important compounds that did not form by abiotic synthesis on Earth.