Analysis of Martian soil by NASA’s ongoing Mars Curiosity rover turned up a surprising amount of water, as well as a chemical that will make a search for life more complicated, scientists said on Thursday.
A scoop of fine-grained sand collected by the rover shortly after its August last year touchdown showed the soil contains about 2 percent water by weight.
“It was kind of a surprise to us,” Curiosity scientist Laurie Leshin of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said.
Photo: Reuters / NASA / JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
“If you take a cubic foot [.09m2] of that soil you can basically get two pints [946ml] of water out it,” she said. “The soil on the surface is really a little like a sponge for sucking stuff out of the atmosphere.”
Scientists announced last week that so far the planet’s atmosphere shows no signs of methane, a gas which on Earth is strongly tied to life. Plumes of methane had been detected over the past decade by Mars orbiters and ground-based telescopes.
Methane, which should last about 200 years under Martian photochemistry, can also be produced by geologic events.
The water was found by heating a tiny bit of soil to 835°C inside Curiosity’s chemistry laboratory and analyzing the resulting gas releases.
Scientists found that in addition to water, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and other materials, the sands of Mars also contain reactive chemicals known as perchlorates.
NASA’s now-defunct Phoenix lander had found perchlorate in the planet’s northern polar region, but scientists did not know until Curiosity’s analysis that the chemical is apparently widespread.
“They seem to accumulate on the surface [of Mars], almost like snow,” Curiosity lead scientist John Grotzinger with the California Institute of Technology said.
That is crucial to know because looking for organic material on Mars may require a new approach.
“The tried-and-true technique on Earth is to heat the sample and take a look at the gases that are produced,” Grotzinger said.
However, the heat can cause perchlorate to break down, in the process degrading the organic compounds scientists are looking for, Grotzinger said.
The presence of perchlorate in soil samples could explain why scientists have had a hard time finding organic material on Mars. They believe that even if life never evolved on Mars, the planet should have organic carbon deposits left by crashing asteroids and meteors.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese