Microbial growth in actual martian regolith in the form of Mars meteorite EETA79001
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Naz, Neveda
Harandi, Bijan F
Newmark, Jacob
Kounaves, Samuel P
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Studies to understand the growth of organisms on Mars are hampered by the use of simulants to duplicate martian mineralogy and chemistry. Even though such materials are improving, no terrestrial simulant can replace a real martian sample. Here we report the use of actual martian regolith, in the form of Mars meteorite EETA79001 sawdust, to demonstrate its ability to support the growth of four microorganisms, E. coli. Eucapsis sp., Chr20-20201027-1, and P. halocryophilus, for up to 23 days under terrestrial conditions using regolith:water ratios from 4:1 to 1:10. If the EETA79001 sawdust is widely representative of regolith on the martian surface, our results imply that microbial life under appropriate conditions could have been present on Mars in the past and/or today in the subsurface, and that the regolith does not contain any bactericidal agents. The results of our study have implications not only for putative martian microbial life but also for building bio-sustainable human habitats on Mars.
Date Issued
2023-10-17
Date Acceptance
2023-10-04
Citation
Communications Earth & Environment, 2023, 4
ISSN
2662-4435
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
Communications Earth & Environment
Volume
4
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2023 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38665180
PII: 1042
Subjects
BIOTOXICITY
CHLORATE
DEPOSITION
EARTH ANALOGS
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Geology
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
LIFE
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
PERCHLORATE
Physical Sciences
RADIATION
Science & Technology
SHERGOTTITE
SOIL
SURVIVAL
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
381
Date Publish Online
2023-10-17