Mars: Life, Subglacial Oceans, Abiogenic Photosynthesis, Seasonal Increases and Replenishment of Atmospheric Oxygen

Abstract

The discovery and subsequent investigations of atmospheric oxygen on Mars are reviewed. Free oxygen is a biomarker produced by photosynthesizing organisms. Oxygen is reactive and on Mars may be destroyed in 10 years and is continually replenished. Diurnal and spring/summer increases in oxygen have been documented, and these variations parallel biologically induced fluctuations on Earth. Data from the Viking biological experiments also support active biology, though these results have been disputed. Although there is no conclusive proof of current or past life on Mars, organic matter has been detected and specimens resembling green algae / cyanobacteria, lichens, stromatolites, and open apertures and fenestrae for the venting of oxygen produced via photosynthesis have been observed. These life-like specimens include thousands of lichen-mushroom-shaped structures with thin stems, attached to rocks, topped by bulbous caps, and oriented skyward similar to photosynthesizing organisms. If these specimens are living, fossilized or abiogenic is unknown. If biological, they may be producing and replenishing atmospheric oxygen. Abiogenic processes might also contribute to oxygenation via sublimation and seasonal melting of subglacial water-ice deposits coupled with UV splitting of water molecules; a process of abiogenic photosynthesis that could have significantly depleted oceans of water and subsurface ice over the last 4.5 billion years.

The Riddle of Atmospheric Oxygen: Photosynthesis or Photolysis?

“…(Despite the low pressure of the atmosphere, dust storms are rampant on Mars, due to the weakness of the planet's gravitational field.) The most recent detailed review [40] of the latest results from studying of Mars confirms the presence of huge amounts of water in the past, and subsurface ice masses in the present period of the planet's evolution. There is a high probability of an oxidizing atmosphere existing on Mars, created either by primitive photosynthetic living organisms or by the photolysis of water ("abiogenic photosynthesis").…”

Chance and Necessity in the Evolution of Matter to Life: A Comprehensive Hypothesis

“…The ideas of water photolysis developed in [105,108], when applied to the situation of our neighboring planets Venus and Mars, logically explain both the practically complete loss of their initially acquired water and the drastic difference in the mass and composition of their atmospheres. Specialists in astrophysics have already accepted our photolysis hypothesis in their recent studies and publications [109].…”

Project of an educational aerospace technology for STEM training

“…(2018, p. 9), the Curiosity rover, which worked on Mars for a few years, investigated the processes of atmospheric evolution, and water and carbon dioxide cycles, processes associated with habitability on the planet's surface. The first detection of atmospheric oxygen on Mars was reported in 1952(Joseph, Duxbury, Kidron, Gibson, Schild, 2020). Sequential images photographed by the Curiosity rover at Gale Crater, Mars, indicate growth of cyanobacteria in different areas of Mars.…”