According to NASA, these are possible life forms that could inhabit Mars.

The discovery of a rock on Mars with a pattern of markings we normally associate with biological processes (and which could indicate life on our neighbor) has reignited speculation about extraterrestrial life. The question for the experts is not so much was mars habitable, but can we find evidence of life. And what will it look like?

According to NASA, “the evidence suggests that Mars was once a habitable world. “Life as we know it could have arisen there.” This makes us wonder what kind of life it might be… After all, Benton Clark III, a member of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) science team, says his “General favorites” are sulfate-reducing bacteria of the genus Desulfovibrio.

We tend to think of photosynthesis as the engine of life on Earth. After all, we see green plants almost everywhere and almost all animal life depends on photosynthetic organisms as a source of food, but not only plants, but also many microbes are capable of photosynthesis. Are Photoautotrophs: They make their own food by capturing energy directly from sunlight..

What distinguishes bacteria from a genus Desulfovibrio in that they are chemoautotrophs: they produce their own food from inorganic compounds.On Earth, they inhabit a wide variety of environments, from swamps to termite guts. And all of these environments have two things in common: there is no oxygen and there are a lot of sulfates.

Mars is a terrestrial planet, similar in many ways to Earth, especially early in its natural history when it was warmer and wetter. Today, however, the Red Planet is more similar to some of the driest deserts on Earth, such as the Atacama Desert and some valleys in Antarctica..

According to a study published in the scientific journal Life, “one option for dealing with these more challenging environmental conditions would be to invent new types of adaptations,” according to the authors, led by Dirk Schulze-Makuch. Based on biological experiments from the Viking Lander probe. We assume that organisms You can use a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide. instead of water.”

Using a mixture of water and hydrogen peroxide would have particular advantages in this cold, dry environment, providing a low freezing point, a source of oxygen, energy, and hygroscopicity (the ability to absorb and release moisture depending on the environment). Hygroscopicity would be particularly advantageous because it would allow organisms to draw water directly from the atmosphere. similar to the microorganisms of the Atacama Desert.

The difference from NASA is that the Schulze-Makuch team believes that photoautotrophic microorganisms may exist in a Martian-type environment, possibly living a lifestyle similar to that of Antarctic endoliths, producing energy from CO₂ and water in the atmosphere, as well as some nitrates produced photochemically in the soil.

“It is entirely possible that life existed on Mars a long time ago,” the study concludes, “with biochemistry very similar or the same as that on Earth, and that it evolved more recently to adapt to current conditions. Hypothetical microorganisms based on ​in a mixture of trans.orhydroxideorgene and water as a solvent beHeyA example of adaptationorlater than this type; or the local and temporarily uninhabitable conditions of Mars (at least as we understand them) couldHey“overcoming through a combination of latency and physiological adaptation.”