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Mineral points to Martian water suitable for life
Thu Dec 18, 6:41 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081218/sc_nm/us_mars_minerals_1
Reuters ? An artist's conception shows what NASA's Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter has revealed, vast Martian glaciers ? [photo]
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Mineral evidence for a water environment
capable of supporting life has been discovered on Mars, scientists said
Thursday.
Deposits of carbonate, formed in neutral or alkaline water, were spotted
by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scientists told a meeting of
the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
"Obviously this is very exciting," said John Mustard of Brown University
in Rhode Island. "It's white -- it's a bulbous, crusty material."
Carbonate is formed when water and carbon dioxide mix with calcium, iron
or magnesium. It dissolves quickly in acid, so its discovery counters
the theory that all water on Mars was at one time acidic.
"It would have been a pretty clement, benign environment for early
Martian life," said Bethany Ehlmann, a graduate student at Brown
University who led the study published in the journal Science.
"It preserves a record of a particular type of habitat, a neutral to
alkaline water environment."
Carbonates on Earth like chalk or limestone sometimes preserve organic
material, but scientists have found no such evidence on Mars.
The 3.6 billion-year-old carbonate was discovered in bedrock at the edge
of a 930-mile-wide (1,490-km-wide) crater.
Carbonate previously had been found in minuscule amounts in soil samples
provided by the Phoenix Mars Lander, Martian dust and Martian meteorites
on Earth. But this is the first time scientists have found a site where
carbonate formed.
The deposits are about the size of football fields and are visible in
images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The deposits appear to be limited, but the neutral or alkaline water
environment may once have been more widespread, said Scott Murchie, a
scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Phyllosilicates, which form under similar conditions to carbonate but do
not dissolve in acidic environments, are abundant on Mars.
"There were these different water environments in early Mars history,
(which) increases the possibilities that life started," said Richard
Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Xavier Briand)
Thu Dec 18, 6:41 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081218/sc_nm/us_mars_minerals_1
Reuters ? An artist's conception shows what NASA's Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter has revealed, vast Martian glaciers ? [photo]
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Mineral evidence for a water environment
capable of supporting life has been discovered on Mars, scientists said
Thursday.
Deposits of carbonate, formed in neutral or alkaline water, were spotted
by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scientists told a meeting of
the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
"Obviously this is very exciting," said John Mustard of Brown University
in Rhode Island. "It's white -- it's a bulbous, crusty material."
Carbonate is formed when water and carbon dioxide mix with calcium, iron
or magnesium. It dissolves quickly in acid, so its discovery counters
the theory that all water on Mars was at one time acidic.
"It would have been a pretty clement, benign environment for early
Martian life," said Bethany Ehlmann, a graduate student at Brown
University who led the study published in the journal Science.
"It preserves a record of a particular type of habitat, a neutral to
alkaline water environment."
Carbonates on Earth like chalk or limestone sometimes preserve organic
material, but scientists have found no such evidence on Mars.
The 3.6 billion-year-old carbonate was discovered in bedrock at the edge
of a 930-mile-wide (1,490-km-wide) crater.
Carbonate previously had been found in minuscule amounts in soil samples
provided by the Phoenix Mars Lander, Martian dust and Martian meteorites
on Earth. But this is the first time scientists have found a site where
carbonate formed.
The deposits are about the size of football fields and are visible in
images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The deposits appear to be limited, but the neutral or alkaline water
environment may once have been more widespread, said Scott Murchie, a
scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Phyllosilicates, which form under similar conditions to carbonate but do
not dissolve in acidic environments, are abundant on Mars.
"There were these different water environments in early Mars history,
(which) increases the possibilities that life started," said Richard
Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Xavier Briand)