Mars had environment like Costa Rica's toxic volcano crater housing bacteria: Study

Microorganisms, that can survive in Earth's most inhospitable environments, can provide clues about how life once existed on Mars, revealed experts from University of Colorado Boulder. A team of researchers are currently conducting a study on bacteria, kwn as extremophiles, that have been found living in hostile environment of Poás volca crater in Costa Rica. crater houses a lake named Laguna Caliente, shown in im above, which has a temperature up to boiling point and constitutes heavy amounts of extremely toxic metals.

How do Costa Rica and Mars compare?

reason why researchers chose Costa Rica's volcanic crater is that its environment resembles what Mars might have had in its past, according to experts. And since re are extremophiles thriving in such an environment, scientists think that simple life might have existed on red planet as well. w kwn for ir toughness, this class of bacteria reportedly creates energy using sulfur, iron and arsenic present in crater, as an adaptation to survive in such a hostile environment. 

Talking about many survival methods of few organisms in lake, Justin Wang, a graduate student at University of Colorado Boulder said as per Daily Mail-

We believe y do this by surviving on fringes of lake when eruptions are occurring. This is when having a relatively wide array of genes would be useful.

lake, which is 984 feet wide and about 100 feet deep, is loaded with toxic elements that make water ten million times more acidic than tap water, experts say in ir study published in journal Frontiers in Astromy and Science. While this research sheds light on how 'Earth life' would have existed in a hydrormal Martian environment, Wang says as per Daily Mail, "wher life ever existed on Mars and wher or t it resembles microorganisms we have here is still a big question. We hope our research steers conversation to prioritize searching for signs of life in se environments". 

experts hope that samples returning from Mars in a few years will help m find evidence if life ever existed on Mars. Currently, NASA's Perseverance is scanning Jezero crater, which according to Wang has some good targets for signs of life. 

Im: University of Colorado Boulder