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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2019

New Insights from the Cumberland Analog Investigation: Benzoic Acid as the Preferred Precursor for Chlorobenzene Detected on Mars

Résumé

The Curiosity rover on Mars is composed of ten instruments. On of them, the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), discovered the first evidence of organic molecules in a martian mudstone named Cumberland. The major molecule found in Cumberland was chlorobenzene, a compound composed of carbon, hydrogen and chlorine. Although the carbon, hydrogene and chlorine atoms are martian, chlorobenzene was likely made up in SAM, meaning that a precursor of it must exist at Mars' surface. In the laboratory, we recreated Cumberland from the minerals it is composed of, to the best of Curiosity's knowledge. This Cumberland analog sample was doped with a potential precursor of chlorobenzene, benzoic acid, and with magnesium perchlorates, ubiquiteous on Mars and the likely source of chlorine. This sample was then analyzed in SAM testbed, a high-fidelity mockup of SAM in the laboratory, within similar experimental conditions that were performed on Mars at Cumblerland. In this experiment, we observed the formation of chlorobenzene. Thus, the case for benzoic acid as a potential precursor for the chlorobenzene detected in the martian regolith is strengthened.
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Dates et versions

insu-04504688 , version 1 (14-03-2024)

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Citer

Caroline Freissinet, Heater V Graham, Christine A Knudson, James Lewis, Jeremie Lasue, et al.. New Insights from the Cumberland Analog Investigation: Benzoic Acid as the Preferred Precursor for Chlorobenzene Detected on Mars. The Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) 2019, Mar 2019, Seattle, United States. pp.id. 405-6. ⟨insu-04504688⟩
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