Even after Mars ' Earth’s surface water was long go , it outlast underground . The legacy has been discover by the Curiosity rover , and suggests the period during which life could have flourished on the Red Planet was substantially tenacious than we accept .
Fractures in rock’n’roll in Gale Crater are besiege by lighter coloured “ halos ” . The colouring has been attribute inGeophysical Research Lettersto high immersion of silica , which were almost certainly deposit by flowing groundwater .
" What we ’re seeing is that silica appears to have migrated between very old aqueous fundamental principle and into young overlying Rock , ” allege Dr Jens Frydenvang of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in astatement . Curiositypreviously demonstratedthat Gale Crater once restrain a great lake , and Frydenvang append that “ even when the lake eventually evaporated , solid amounts of groundwater were present for much long than we antecedently thought – thus further expanding the window for when life might have live on Mars . ”
Curiosity used the Chemistry and Camera optical maser to specify the composing of the aura and their difference from rocks both above and below them . Silica content was between 60 and 80 per centum , by weight , compared to 45 percent elsewhere . They were locate near older gamey - silicon dioxide deposit . The most common analogous silica deposits on Earth are quartz , but Mars ' condition apparently did n’t allow this .
The writer do n’t know what caused the weewee to flow through rock fractures to the surface , but they are not surprised it bring silica with it . Silica ’s solubility in water is heavily dependent on acidulousness and temperature , so a variety in either of these would lead to sudden deposition . The fact that this occur after the lake had evaporated can be build from the fact that some of the nimbus are envision in sand dune that were shaped by wind after the crater dried out .
The silica discovery confirms suspiciousness of long - lasting groundwater call down by arecent analysisof boron statistical distribution within Gale .
We do n’t yet recognize when the halos were formed , and therefore how long after the lake evaporate that such outbursts continued , but the newspaper conclude : “ The timescale for likely habitability , at least in the subsurface of Gale , must be substantially extend . ”
H2O does not necessarily mean life story , of trend . However , without it living seems unlikely , if not impossible . Moreover , if we acquire that such a long conjunction of water and many of the other term we think are essential for life story were not sufficient to see it develop , it will tell us that Earth is more uncommon and cute than we thought .
