The rocky outcrop (above middle) that contain carbonates. Image credit Nasa
4th June 2010
More interesting news from the red planet…
Nasa’s Mars rover “Spirit”, the one that got stuck for good in the Martian soil earlier in the year, ”struck gold” when it was examining rocks way back in 2005. The rover was at a rocky outcrop called “Comanche” at the time, as it was making it’s way down from the summit of ”Husband Hill“. The data that Spirit obtained from the red rocks back then has been keeping scientists busy for years, and only now have they been able to announce their results.
The rovers have previously found other rocks that were in contact with water, but only water that was acidic, which means water not that great for the chances of past alien life. So the search has been on for signs in the rocks of the more neutral kind of the wet stuff, not so acidic and therefore more life friendly. At the rocky outcrop called Comanche, Spirit found large amounts of carbonates. These carbonates could only have existed in more neutral water, as they would have dissolved away in acidic water. More neutral water on Mars may have made great living conditions for life, in it’s wetter and warmer past.
Water is the magic ingredient, life as we know it definitely needs H2O. But life is very tough and versatile and can squeeze into the most hostile of environments as we see very clearly here on Earth. Could even acidic lakes and pools on Mars not have been that big an obstacle to life, in it’s ancient past?
