The Argyre Basin on Mars may be the most likely place to find evidence of ancient life, a new study reveals. The area appears to be rich in materials that may have led to the evolution of life, researchers concluded. It may even be possible that simple lifeforms could still exist in the basin.
Spacecraft headed to Mars in the near future should target the Argyre Basin, in an effort to study the region, searching for past or present life on the Red Planet, researchers suggested. Since the basin sits at such a low elevation on Mars, the region would be ideal for landers utilizing parachutes to touch down on the Red Planet. With additional atmosphere to travel through, these vehicles would have more time than normal to slow down, easing their descent.
"Argyre displays a collection of landscape features that are promising from an astrobiological point of view, including hydrothermal deposits, pingos [mounds of dirt-covered ice fed by water] or ancient glacier deposits. This large collection of special features all together in the same setting, accessible by a single mission, is what makes Argyre unique," Alberto Fairén from the astronomy department at Cornell University, said.
The Argyre Basin sits at roughly 50 degrees southern latitude on Mars - roughly equivalent to the position of the Falkland Islands here on Earth. Within the basin, sunlight rarely shines, so any spacecraft landing there would almost certainly need to be powered by nuclear-driven electric generators.
Thorough exploration of the basin could involve an orbiter, working in conjunction with one or two rovers on the ground. These landers could be designed to drill into the surface of Mars, searching for Martian life still clinging to existence on the desert planet, or the remains of ancient life, now extinct.
Not long after the planets cooled, forming our solar system, Mars was likely awash with liquid water, and was encased within a thick atmosphere, blocking the harmful effects of the sun. Roughly 4 billion years ago, a tremendous asteroid slammed into the world, forming the Argyre Basin. This massive feature stretches 1,100 miles from one side to another.
As time went on, Mars lost most of its atmosphere to space, freezing lakes and oceans on the surface of the Red Planet. It is possible that conditions in the basin were ideal for preserving fossils, researchers noted.
Analysis of the Argyre Basin as a home for life on Mars was published in the journal Astrobiology.
