Researchers believe they've discovered "the building blocks for life" in a Mars meteorite.
The meteorite was found in Antarctica by the Antarctic Search for Meteorites team around 2010, they determined it had the chemical composition of an object from Mars.
The substance that the University of Hawaii at Manoa NASA Astrobiology Institute (UHNAI) found in the object was boron, which is essential in the creation of RNA.
"Borates may have been important for the origin of life on Earth because they can stabilize ribose, a crucial component of RNA. In early life RNA is thought to have been the informational precursor to DNA," James Stephenson, a UHNAI postdoctoral fellow said in the study.
The team used an microprobe to clearly examine the Martian meteorite and determined it had the chemical composition of an object from Mars.
The veins of clay in the meteorite were analyzed and the team was excited to find an abundance of boron, the levels were 10 times higher than in any previously examined meteorite.
RNA, which can stem from boron, is thought to have been the first molecule that could pass information down to the next generation, leading the way for evolution.
The modern world has a "sophisticated mechanism" for producing RNA, but in the early days we weren't so lucky. The hardest part about creating RNA is forming the essential sugar component called ribose.
Science has shown that without boron, the substance found in the meteorite, ribose cannot be created. However when it is present ribose is "spontaneously produced and stabilized."
"Given that boron has been implicated in the emergence of life, I had assumed that it was well characterized in meteorites," Dr. Stephenson said.
Boron is found in abundance on our planet, it's mostly present in clay deposits and salt. The new research suggests there were concentrations of boron on Mars while life on Earth was just beginning.
"Earth and Mars used to have much more in common than they do today. Over time, Mars has lost a lot of its atmosphere and surface water, but ancient meteorites preserve delicate clays from wetter periods in Mars' history," said Lydia Hallis, a cosmochemist and UHNAI postdoctoral fellow said in the study. "The Martian clay we studied is thought to be up to 700 million years old.
"The recycling of the Earth's crust via plate tectonics has left no evidence of clays this old on our planet; hence Martian clays could provide essential information regarding environmental conditions on the early Earth," she said.
The researchers believe there could have been similar boron-rich clay on Earth in the earliest days.
The 700-million year old clay veins under an electron microscope.
