Mars has become a cultural fascination. Scientists are trying to get there, private companies are trying to make a home there and beermakers are trying to drink there. Nowhere is like the red planet. Well, perhaps not nowhere.
CU Boulder Associate Professor Brian Hynek has made it his job to study environments on Earth that mimic that of ancient Mars, a time when volatile and mineral-rich pools of water covered the planet.
The analogs aren’t perfect, though,and they only number in the dozens. But the search has led him across the country from Nicaragua to Iceland, researching incredibly hot and acidic water near volcanoes.
That’s why he was in Costa Rice in November 2013. He dashed to and from Laguna Caliente, which is nestled in the Poás Volcano. The lake is chaotic, its temperature changing rapidly from near-ambient to practically boiling while its water is 10 million times more acidic than tap water. Hynek only spent as long as he needed to grab samples, making sure to avoid the lake’s frequent geyser-like eruptions.
“We’re sort of at the fringes even of what Earth life can tolerate,” Hynek said of the lake.
Yet somehow, there still is life. Hynek scanned water samples for DNA and discovered microbes living in the toxic volcanic lake, . It’s not just that Hynek found microbes, though. He found one type of microbe — only one.
These types of monocultures are rare on earth. Off the top of his head, Hynek could only think of one other example: 3 to 4 kilometers down.
Additionally, the microbes he found didn’t match any that have already been cataloged. If Hynek is able to nail down what exactly this microbe is, he’ll be able to name it. So far, he knows it belongs to the Acidiphilium genus, which is a group of microbes that have previously been seen in toxic drainage from coal mines and other harsh locations.
Hynek’s discovery could point to what life on Mars — if it existed — would have been like. It likely wouldn’t be broad biodiversity, he said. Life on Mars would likely have survived by processing energy from iron- and sulfur-bearing minerals, which is how the lake’s bacterium does it.
Hynek has gone to the volcano twice now and plans to go again this summer. But Laguna Caliente won’t be there. The volcano erupted seven days after he last left at the end of March 2017 and has been going off ever since, destroying the lake in the process.
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