Cyanosulfidic chemistry on Mars
Life on Mars has always been an intriguing topic to ponder upon since decades. It certainly brings us to the question, why Mars? Certainly, there are some theories regarding Venus as well, but the general focus is on Mars specifically. Although Venus is regarded as the twin planet of Earth, it can’t develop life as a result of the collision with Theia, which made its rotation slower and was unable to develop a strong magnetic field unlike Earth, resulting in its hostile environment and presumed incapability to host life. Mars on the other hand, has evidence of having liquid water in the past along with having 0.16% oxygen at the current moment.
One more intriguing aspect of Mars is that, scientists have found clues of Cyanosulfidic chemistry in the form of different organic compounds found on Mars. They included Hydrogen Cyanide and formaldehyde. Now our next question is, why is the presence of Cyanosulfidic chemistry important ?
Life as we currently know of, wasn’t always so complex and organised. It’s widely believed that biological chemistry has developed from prebiotic chemistry. Cyanosulfidic chemistry is a proposed pathway for prebiotic synthesis. It hasn’t been directly found in Martian rocks, but organic molecules including fatty acid components in ancient lake sediments have been found in the Jezero Crater and Gale Crater’s Yellowknife bay.
Life utilizes amino acids, nucleic acids, lipids, etc. which may have been formed from cyanosulfidic chemical precursors which involves UV light, wet-dry cycling and volcanism. Cyanosulfidic origin of life could have taken place on Mars via photoredox chemistry including, sulphide (SO²-), mediating cycling of ferrocyanide {[Fe (II)(CN)6]⁴-} and Ferricyanide {[Fe(III)(CN)6]³-} along with UV radiation.
Volcanism or impacts interacting with cyanide salts deposits could have generated relevant compounds like the precursors of nucleotide, amino acids and lipids.
Closed basin lakes in volcanic island hotspots, are deemed to be ideal for concentration of cyanide salts. We all know, that Mars has abundant volcanoes and is also believed to have possessed liquid water sometime in the past.
Chemical weathering can cause mafic/ ultramafic rocks which cause alkaline lakes, where one will find a stockpile of ferricyanide salt precipitations. Similar conditions could have existed in Mars as well.
However, there are some inconsistencies to this hypothesis when we relate it with the formation of genetic code on Earth, which will be discussed later.
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