Organic matter on Mars – and a seasonal methane cycle
Researchers estimate that every year, 100 to 300 tons of organic matter from space must land on the Mars surface. If one considers that this process has been going on for billions of years, then there must be abundant organic deposits (which, to be clear, were produced from abiotic processes and thus have nothing to do with organic life) to be found on Mars. However, the first probes, which analyzed Mars’s soil with a gas chromatography, Viking-1 and Viking-2, found absolutely no traces of organic materials in the regolith samples that they analyzed. This was a source of astonishment…