Investigating the stability of aromatic carboxylic acids in hydrated magnesium sulfate under UV irradiation to assist detection of organics on Mars.

ABSTRACT: The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument onboard the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover detected so far some of the most intense fluorescence signals in association with sulfates analyzing abraded patches of rocks at Jezero crater, Mars. To assess the plausibility of an organic origin of these signals, it is key to understand if organics can survive exposure to ambient Martian UV after exposure by the Perseverance abrasion tool and prior to analysis by SHERLOC. In this work, we investigated the stability of organo-sulfate assemblages under Martian-like UV irradiation and we observed that the spectroscopic features of phthalic and mellitic acid embedded into hydrated magnesium sulfate do not change for UV exposures correspondi

SUBMITTER: Alberini A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11237158 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature