{"page":"\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/resources-572d6a42.css\" /\u003e\n\u003clink rel=\"stylesheet\" href=\"https://lessonplanet.com/assets/packs/css/lp_boclips_stylesheets-f4d0de30.css\" media=\"all\" /\u003e\n\u003cdiv data-title='Mars Discoveries Boost Case for Possible Life' data-url='/boclips/videos/5c54d7acd8eafeecae20dce7' data-video-url='/boclips/videos/5c54d7acd8eafeecae20dce7' id='bo_player_modal'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='boclips-resource-page modal-dialog panel-container'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='react-notifications-root'\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-header'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-type'\u003e\n\u003ci aria-hidden='true' class='fai fa-regular fa-circle-play'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\nVideo\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch1 class='rp-title' id='video-title'\u003e\nMars Discoveries Boost Case for Possible Life\n\u003c/h1\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-actions'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='mr-1'\u003e\n\u003ca class=\"btn btn-success\" data-posthog-event=\"Signup: LP Signup Activity\" data-posthog-location=\"body_link_boclips\" data-remote=\"true\" href=\"/subscription/new\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGet Free Access\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"\"\u003e for 10 Days\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e!\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-body'\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-info'\u003e\n\u003cdiv aria-label='Hide resource details' class='rp-hide-info' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u0026times;\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Expand resource details' class='rp-expand-info fai fa-solid fa-up-right-and-down-left-from-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003ci aria-label='Compress resource details' class='rp-compress-info fai fa-solid fa-down-left-and-up-right-to-center' role='button' tabindex='0'\u003e\u003c/i\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-rating'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='resource-pool'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-label'\u003ePublisher:\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='pool-name'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='text'\u003e\u003ca data-publisher-id=\"30356011\" href=\"/search?publisher_ids%5B%5D=30356011\"\u003eCurated Video\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class='rp-description'\u003e\n\u003cspan class='short-description'\u003eNew Mars discoveries are advancing the case for possible life on the red planet, past or even present.                            Scientists reported Thursday that NASA's Curiosity rover has found potential building blocks of life in an...\u003c/span\u003e\n\u003cspan class='full-description hide'\u003eNew Mars discoveries are advancing the case for possible life on the red planet, past or even present.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              Scientists reported Thursday that NASA's Curiosity rover has found potential building blocks of life in an ancient Martian lake bed. \u003cbr/\u003e              Hints have been found before, but this is the best evidence yet.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              The organic molecules preserved in 3.5 billion-year-old bedrock in Gale Crater - believed to once contain a shallow lake the size of Florida's Lake Okeechobee - suggest conditions back then may have been conducive to life. That leaves open the possibility that microorganisms once populated our planetary neighbor and might still exist there.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              \"The chances of being able to find signs of ancient life with future missions, if life ever was present, just went up,\" said Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              Curiosity also has confirmed sharp seasonal increases of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Researchers said they can't rule out a biological source. Most of Earth's atmospheric methane comes from animal and plant life, and the environment itself.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              The two studies appear in the journal Science.  \u003cbr/\u003e              Scientists agree more powerful spacecraft - and, ideally, rocks returned to Earth from Mars - are needed to prove whether tiny organisms like bacteria ever existed on the red planet.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              Curiosity's methane measurements occurred over 4 ½ Earth years, covering parts of three Martian years. Seasonal peaks were detected in late summer in the northern hemisphere and late winter in the southern hemisphere.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              JPL's Christopher Webster, lead author on the study, said it's the first time Martian methane has shown a repeated pattern. The magnitude of these seasonal peaks - by a factor of three - was far more than scientists expected. \"We were just blown away,\" he said. \"It's tripling ... that's a huge, huge difference.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              Webster theorizes the methane created either now or long ago is seeping from deep underground reservoirs up through cracks and fissures in the crust. Once at the surface, the methane sticks to dirt and rocks, with more released into the atmosphere when it's hotter.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              \"We have no proof that the methane is formed biologically, but we cannot rule it out, even with this new data set,\" Webster said.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              Scientists have been seeking organic molecules on Mars ever since the 1976 Viking landers. The twin Vikings came up pretty much empty.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              Arriving at Mars in 2012 with a drill and its own onboard labs, Curiosity confirmed the presence of organics in rocks in 2013, but the molecules weren't exactly what scientists expected. So they looked elsewhere. The key samples in the latest findings came from a spot 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) away.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              As with methane, there could well be non-biological explanations for the presence of carbon-containing molecules on Mars, such as geologic processes or impacts by asteroids, comet, meteors and interplanetary dust.\u003cbr/\u003e              \u003cbr/\u003e              Jennifer Eigenbrode, an astrobiologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who led the organics study, said she's intrigued by the possibility that life might have existed and adapted on Mars.\u003cbr/\u003e            \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              No Location - Date Unknown\u003cbr/\u003e              1. NASA animation of Mars in space \u003cbr/\u003e              2. NASA animation of Mars Curiosity rover\u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              Pasadena, California - 7 June 2018\u003cbr/\u003e              3. SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Webster, JPL Fellow and Senior Research Scientist+++SOT PARTIALLY COVERED WITH NASA GRAPHIC+++\u003cbr/\u003e              \"So today we're announcing a discovery of a repeatable, identifiable seasonal pattern in the methane measurements then we can look here at the graphic and we can see that it's in the lower background level because most of the time we're not looking at spikes and we see this low background level you can see from the winter to the summer this growth and the big surprise to us not only have we got this wonderful repeatability but the seasonal cycle changes by a factor of three. That's a huge change, completely unexpected. And what it does is it gives us a key to unlocking the mysteries associated with Mars methane because now we have something to test our models and our understanding against.\" \u003cbr/\u003e              NASA\u003cbr/\u003e              No Location - Date Unknown\u003cbr/\u003e              4. Various NASA animation of Gale Crater (where organic molecules have been found)\u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              Greenbelt, Maryland - 7 June 2018\u003cbr/\u003e              5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jennifer Eigenbrode, NASA Research Astrobiologist +++PARTIALLY COVERED WITH NASA PHOTO+++  \u003cbr/\u003e              \"Viking started this quest back in 1976 looking for organic molecules. Curiosity have continued that quest and now we have a diverse set of molecules that we can now start to understand a little bit more about how this material is preserved and where else we might look to get more.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              NASA\u003cbr/\u003e              No Location - Date Unknown\u003cbr/\u003e              6. NASA animation of Mars Curiosity rover and inlet valves  \u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              Pasadena, California - 7 June 2018\u003cbr/\u003e              7. SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Webster, JPL Fellow and Senior Research Scientist\u003cbr/\u003e              \"We look at the data and the idea that best fits our data. It is the idea of subsurface storage. so way under the ground, under Mars, this methane is trapped. It may be trapped as clathrates or other materials. We don't know if that methane is ancient, we don't know if it's modern, it could be either.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              No Location - Date Unknown\u003cbr/\u003e              8. NASA animation of splitting of molecules \u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              Pasadena, California - 7 June 2018\u003cbr/\u003e              SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Webster, JPL Fellow and Senior Research Scientist\u003cbr/\u003e              9. \"So this is an exciting time because we have this seasonal cycle to constrain some of the theories of the sources and things of this important gas.\"\u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              No Location - Date Unknown\u003cbr/\u003e              10. NASA animation of a spectrometer \u003cbr/\u003e              NASA \u003cbr/\u003e              Pasadena, California - 7 June 2018\u003cbr/\u003e              11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, NASA JPL Curiousity Project Scientist\u003cbr/\u003e              \"This is not only important for curiosity as you know fulfilling one of our main mission objectives but it's also important for future Mars missions who will seek direct signs of life.\" \u003cbr/\u003e              NASA\u003cbr/\u003e              Greenbelt, Maryland - 7 June 2018\u003cbr/\u003e              12. 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