Parts of Mars were once "drenched" with so much water that life could easily have existed there, NASA said on Tuesday.
The robot explorer Opportunity has seen clear evidence of the main goal of Mars exploration -- that water once flowed or pooled on the Red Planet's surface.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where liquid water once drenched the surface," NASA associate administrator Ed Weiler told a news conference. "Moreover, this area would have been good habitable environment."
That does not mean that evidence of life has been found -- but it suggests that life could have evolved on Mars just as it did on Earth, NASA said.
It does mean NASA can go ahead with a plan to eventually send people to Mars. Finding strong evidence of water has been a prerequisite for more ambitious missions.
Evidence of frozen water has been seen in several places on Mars and photographs taken from orbiters have shown structures that could have been formed by flowing or gushing water, but the Opportunity's instruments provide the strongest evidence yet of something resembling the way water flows and collects on or just under the surface of the Earth.
Opportunity landed on Jan. 24 in a small crater on the vast flat Meridiani Planum near the planet's equator. It has been studying finely layered bedrock in the crater's wall.
Scientists have been puzzling over whether the layers were formed by wind, volcanic lava flows or water and if little round balls nicknamed "blueberries" may have been formed by water.
They have also been intrigued by the discovery of a gray shiny mineral called hematite, which on Earth is formed in water.
The scientists said the hematite, the blueberries and the heavy salt content of the area all add up to one conclusion -- salt water.
"We have concluded the rocks here were once soaked with liquid water," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who leads the scientific investigation.
"It changed their texture and it changed their chemistry," he added. "We cannot yet tell you with certainty that these rocks were laid down in a lake, in a pool, in a sea."
They may have been formed by water percolating through layers of volcanic ash, he said.
"[This area] would have been suitable for life," Squyres said. "That doesn't mean life was there. But this was a habitable place on Mars at one period of time."
More will be known when a mission can be sent to bring back Mars rocks, Squyres said. "The best way to get at the age is going to be to bring some of this stuff back," he said.
"It is clear that we are going to have to do a sample return," agreed Weiler. He said work will start right away on preparing for an eventual human mission to Mars.
In the meantime, another robotic mission will be set up, probably to pick up some rocks and soil and bring them back to Earth for close analysis.
Pictures from the rover's panoramic camera and microscopic imager show a rock it has been looking at called "El Capitan" is pocked with indentations about a centimeter long.
"This distinctive texture is familiar to geologists as the sites where crystals of salt minerals form within rocks that sit in briny water," NASA said in a statement.
Benton Clark, chief scientist of space exploration at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Astronautics Operations in Denver, said the salty area resembled a dried-up seabed -- and the composition was comparable to the saltiness in the Dead Sea, between Israel and Jordan.
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
The Vatican Museums on Thursday unveiled the last and most important of the restored Raphael Rooms, the spectacularly frescoed reception rooms of the Apostolic Palace that in some ways rival the Sistine Chapel as the peak of high Renaissance artistry. A decade-long project to clean and restore the largest of the four Raphael Rooms uncovered a novel mural painting technique that Renaissance painter and architect Raphael began, but never completed. He used oil paint directly on the wall, and arranged a grid of nails embedded in the walls to hold in place the resin surface onto which he painted. Vatican Museums officials
RSS