With the dates for the first human mission to Mars approaching, scientists are running experiments to find the red planet as hospitable as possible for human settlement. New test, published in Boundaries in microbiology, with researchers from the University of Bremen, Germany has shown for the first time that Anabaena cyanobacteria, aka blue-green algae, can be grown successfully in Martian atmospheric conditions.
Astronauts on Mars need oxygen, water, food and other consumables so this is a huge improvement as it makes it much easier to develop sustainable biological life support systems.
Surviving on Mars
To give some background, it is believed that the rise of cyanobacteria that occurred 2.4 billion years ago was largely responsible for the Earth ‘s breathing atmosphere. The presence of cyanobacteria gave oxygen to the atmosphere. For that reason, scientists were already debating how and how we could harness the ability of cyanobacteria to produce oxygen to survive on Mars and, possibly, on other planets.
However, the pressure of Mars’ atmosphere always presented itself as a solution. In this experiment, the researchers developed a bioreactor called Atmos. Air pressure is about 10 percent of the Earth’s weight and it only uses the ingredients found on Mars.
The bioreactor also had water, which can be collected from Mars frozen ice that is abundant in certain places. In addition, it had a Martian regolith simulant, which the researchers prepared by mixing minerals found on Mars.
The system of nine glass and steel vessels was carefully controlled and inspected at all times.
“Here we show that cyanobacteria can use gases found in the Martian atmosphere, at very low pressures, as their source of carbon and their nitrogen,” said astrobiologist Cyprien Verseux.
“Under these conditions, cyanobacteria retained their ability to grow in water-only Mars-like water and could still be used to feed other microbes. This could help long-term missions to make Mars sustainable. “
The team now wants to work on developing a bioreactor system that could one day make life on Mars.
“Our bioreactor, Atmos, is not the cultivation system we would use on Mars: it is intended to test, on Earth, the conditions we would provide there,” Verseux said. “But our results will help guide the design of a Martian cultivation system … We want to go from this ideology to a system that can be used effectively on Mars.”