New study suggests that ancient Martian life may have existed before it destroyed its home planet via climate change. The fresh concept originates from a climate modelling research published in Nature Astronomy that used computer simulations to imagine bacteria thriving on Mars billions of years ago, when the red planet had an atmosphere comparable to that of Earth today. Some scientists believe that tiny Martian life may have accidentally destroyed itself by changing Mars's atmosphere.
Scientists have determined that the different gas compositions of the two planets and their distance from the sun are to blame for the success of life on Earth but the extinction of life on Mars.
Life on Mars relied far more heavily on greenhouse gases being trapped in its atmosphere to maintain an optimal temperature for lifeforms to thrive and reproduce due to the planet's greater distance from the sun.
However, the ancient bacteria' use of hydrogen and production of methane gradually eroded away at their planet's heat-trapping mechanism, making Mars inhospitable due to its extreme cold.
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The normal temperature of Mars may have been in the tens to twenty degrees Celsius range when the creatures thrived, but as the bacteria multiplied, the temperature fell to roughly minus 57 degrees, driving them deeper into the planet's warmer crust.
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Boris Sauterey, an astrobiologist and leader of the study said: "The ingredients of life are everywhere in the universe."
"So it's possible that life appears regularly in the universe. But the inability of life to maintain habitable conditions on the surface of the planet makes it go extinct very fast. Our experiment takes it even a step farther as it shows that even a very primitive biosphere can have a completely self-destructive effect."
Such locations may be reconsidered for future Mars missions after human exploration gets underway, according to Sauterey. The crew is concentrating on studying contemporary Mars at the moment. Although the increased quantities of methane in the atmosphere might be the consequence of factors other than microbial activity, the interesting idea remains that lifeforms such as methanogens may have persisted in isolated pockets on Mars, deep underground -oases of alien life in an otherwise hostile environment.
