Organic ablation products of extraterrestrial objects

当物体从太空坠落到地球上时，我们的重点是这些炽热事件的岩石残骸，我们可以收集和研究，这是可以理解的。然而，大量的外星物质从未到达地表，而是以气体的形式蒸馏出来。这些贡献改变了我们的大气，增加了影响我们气候的有机气体，并破坏了保护臭氧层的屏障，从而切断了来自太阳的破坏性辐射。在火星等其他星球上，它们可能会模仿生物的气体产物，这让寻找太阳系其他地方生命的科学家们兴奋不已。有趣的是，这些气体的添加使早期火星保持了温暖和潮湿，因此生命可能在地球以外的其他地方开始存在。为了弄清这些可能性，我们的研究将使用收集的外星人材料来再现实验室中的气体生成事件。结果将被输入计算机模拟，以提供地球和火星历史上以这种方式产生的气体量。我们将产生甲烷等气体的下限，这些气体可能被误认为是火星上存在生命的证据。该项目还将帮助我们了解太空尘埃是如何在40亿年前让地球和火星变得温暖潮湿的，以及它如何在今天让地球变得更加敌对。

When object fall to the Earth from space it is understandable that our focus is on the rocky remains of these fiery events that we can collect and study. Yet large amounts of extraterrestrial material never make it to the surface but are distilled off as gas. These contributions change our atmosphere, adding organic gases that affect our climate and destroy the protective ozone shield that cuts out damaging radiation from the Sun. On other worlds, such as Mars, they may mimic the gaseous products of biology that excite scientists looking for life elsewhere in the Solar System. Interestingly, these gas additions my have kept early Mars warm and wet so that life could have kick-started in places other than on Earth. To get to the bottom of these possibilities our research will use collected extraterrestrial material to reproduce the gas generation events in the laboratory. Results will be fed into computer simulations to provide the amounts of gas produced in this way for Earth and Mars through their history. We will produce a lower limit for gases such as methane that may be mistaken for evidence of life on Mars. The project will also help us understand how space dust made Earth and Mars warm and wet four billion years ago and how it may be making the Earth more hostile today.