This is a scientific American's 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intalyata. Got a minute?

If you're looking for signs of past life on Earth, some of the evidence is obvious.

Finding a trilobite fossil is a no-brainer.

We all can understand that one, or a dinosaur bone.

Jack Mustard, a Brown University geologist.

He says less obvious signs of ancient life

can be found in glass, specifically impact glass, which

forms when asteroids slam into the planet, rapidly heating and melting the rocks around

them.

Impact glass on the earth can preserve biological material in a kind of capsule, a time capsule if you will.

Here on Earth for instance, scientists have found impact glass containing ancient plant matter and other chemical signatures of life.

Jack and his colleague, Kevin Cannon, have now spotted the same sort of impact glass on Mars

on Mars reconnaissance orbiter,

which means Martian glass might also hold evidence of life

if the red planet ever harbored life that is.

The glass is more than just a potential time capsule.

Its mineral structure also makes it an attractive snack for certain microbes.

Microbes eat geologic materials, but it can be a really slow process.

Glass, on the other hand, is something that is kind of like having a darito for a micro because you can just

start chewing away at it and it's quite delicious and you just munch right

through it. Meaning it also might be worth inspecting glass for anything living on it,

not just trapped inside.

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