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> Regardless, confirmation of macromolecular organic matter supports the possibility that future optimized TMAH thermochemolysis experiments can liberate ancient biosignatures preserved in macromolecules on Mars (if present). The broad structural variety of organic molecules observed in situ from surface materials suggests some chemical diversity is preserved in ancient Martian sediments despite >3.5 billion years of diagenesis and radiation exposure.
Macromolecules, not just "organic" (which, reminder, does not mean "biological"). It seems like you can still get macromolecules abiotically, but it's a little more tantalizing.
- Water on Mars: confirmed 2004 - Organic molecules on Mars: confirmed 2018 - Complex organic molecules (e.g., DNA precursors) on Mars: 2026
We now know for certain that it is possible for complex organic molecules to be preserved for ~3.5 billion years on the Martian surface.
The big question everyone wants to know is if life ever existed on Mars. Now we know that it's possible for that question to be answer, since we have confirmation of complex organic molecules actually being preserved.
This legitimizes future missions/spending on life searching missions to the Martian surface.
How about spending money to get clean drinking water to the whole humanity (and other living creatures) here on earth first?
This. It's been an incredibly steady march from "dead space rock" to "life".
It would be nice to prove or disprove the Viking gas experiments while some of the people who worked on that stuff are still alive.
in summary, we were all imagining a Star Trek "take me to your leader" moment of First Contact, and instead he imagines it will be a slow transition of increasing evidence that convinces more and more people over years and years.
Scientifically, it'll be called when there's too much evidence to genuinely dispute it. Probably when a collection of specimens is found, either dead or alive, that can be shown to be unrelated or distantly related to Earth life.
If you put forward a hypothesis: these molecules were produced by life, then other scientists will search for arguments to disprove your hypothesis. If after some time none of those arguments hold up to scrutiny, we must assume the hypothesis is correct.
If NASA finds something indisputable like an RNA fragment, basically every scientific mind on the planet will try to find explanations that don't involve life. If all abiotic arguments are disproven, then by elimination we've proven that the molecule was produced biologically. If even one argument can conclusively prove an abiotic process that can produce exactly what we observe, then we must assume the no-life case. This is where we are now.
Once the scientific community reaches consensus, the call is made implicitly when the hypothesis is accepted as fact into the scientific canon. The announcement will likely go through various global leaders and/or NASA, as it's an announcement that impacts our entire species, not just one country.
Note that proof by elimination is only one method of proving a hypothesis. Most of the others don't apply here.
For most people whatever life it is will to need to look like at least like whatever they think is life
So if they don’t consider bacteria or simple cells life then you’ll have no ability to convince them
Wake me up if they find ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Without ATP no life.