Searching for habitable environments on Mars
Over the past few decades, scientists have discovered that Earth’s subsurface is home to hardy microbes known as extremophiles. In Canada’s Kidd Creek Mine, for instance, extremophiles have been found more than a mile beneath the surface, in water that hasn’t seen the light of day in over a billion years.
As to how these tough creatures manage to survive without sunlight, they subsist on the byproducts of chemical reactions that occur when rocks come into contact with water.
One such reaction is radiolysis, which occurs when radioactive elements in rocks react with water trapped in pore and fracture space. The reaction breaks down water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The liberated hydrogen is then dissolved in the remaining water, while minerals soak up free oxygen to form sulfate minerals. Microbes can then use the dissolved hydrogen as fuel and the oxygen preserved in the sulfates to “burn” tha
There could be life on Mars right now (but beneath the surface)
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There could be life on Mars right now (but beneath the surface)
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Microbes may be thriving below the Mars surface by surviving on chemical energy from groundwater
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