According to a recent research, the mysterious "halos" of rock that
surround fissures in a Martian crater may be comprised of water-rich opal
gemstones.
According to fresh information from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, an old,
dried-up lake bed on Mars may be rich in opal gemstones.
According to a study published Dec. 19 in the
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, these opals could be proof that water and rock have been
interacting beneath the Martian surface much more recently than was
previously believed, increasing the likelihood that microbial life once
lived there. This is in addition to giving the cracked surface of Mars' Gale
Crater a semiprecious glint .
As water is essential for life as we know it, researchers frequently
concentrate on it while looking for evidence of alien life. Yet, as water
does not now flow on Mars, researchers must look for geological evidence of
the previous presence of water. Similar indications may be found in the soil
and rocks of the Red Planet, where certain minerals and structures can only
form in environments where rock and water have interacted.
In the recent years, scientists discovered one such indication near surface
fissures on Mars. Researchers discovered "halos" of lighter-colored rock
that surround some of these cracks and are probably opal-rich. Silica-rich
rocks must contact with water for opal to form.
The massive image collection from the Curiosity rover has allowed
researchers to discover that these opal-rich halos are not unique. Instead,
they seem to be spread out over Gale Crater, a 154-kilometer (96-mile) broad
old lake bed that Curiosity has been exploring since its mission started in
2012.
A
research
physicist at the U.S. Geological Survey named Travis Gabriel is the study's
primary author. "Our new analysis of archival data found startling
resemblance between all of the fracture halos we've discovered much later in
the mission," he said in a statement. It was amazing to see how numerous and
possibly opal-rich these fracture networks were.
A pale halo of rock encircling a crack was seen in a photograph acquired
much earlier in the mission when Gabriel and his colleagues were looking
over previous photos obtained during Curiosity's journey around Gale Crater.
That halo resembled halos discovered more recently almost perfectly. The
newly examined light rocks most likely included silica-rich opals, according
to data from Curiosity's ChemCam instrument, which examines rocks using
pictures and spectrometry.
Gabriel's team performed an additional examination on a second collection
of fracture halos at a different location within the crater known as the
Lubango drill site to verify the chemistry of those rocks. The scientists
utilized the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) sensor on Curiosity to study
the neutrons that cosmic rays, high-energy particles that regularly pummel
Mars, knock off the planet's surface. In the presence of hydrogen, one of
the primary components of water, these bouncing neutrons slow down. There
are more water-bearing rocks (like opal) in a region where DAN detects a
greater percentage of slowly traveling neutrons.
Like to other locations around Gale Crater, the Lubango site's
lighter-colored ground halo was found to contain opal, according to DAN
data.
Researchers may infer from this information and images of fracture halos
taken far earlier in the expedition that water must have once covered the
whole Gale Crater.
It's plausible to assume that these potentially livable subsurface
conditions extended to many other sections of Gale Crater as well, and maybe
in other regions of Mars, Gabriel added, given the extensive fracture
networks seen in Gale Crater. These ecosystems would have developed long
after Gale Crater's prehistoric waters dried up.
According to the researchers, the discovery that water must have persisted
in Gale Crater long after the lake dried up suggests that life may have
persisted there for a little while longer, potentially even into Mars'
present geological age, which started 2.9 billion years ago. (It is
estimated that Mars is 4.6 billion years old.)
These findings add to the growing body of proof that water previously
existed on Mars. The opal-rich fissures in Gale Crater are suggested by the
research authors as a new location for gathering geological samples or for
possible human exploration missions in order to better understand the
planet's aquatic history.
