A mineral called cedarite is found in abundance in the rock drilled by NASA rover on the surface of Mars, providing new evidence of the planet’s warm and wet ancient past, when it disturbs life and potentially life.
Curiosity Rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, was able to find out whether the Earth’s planets were able to support microbial life at any time, found minerals in rock samples drilled at three places in 2022 and 2023 inside the Gayle Crater, a major impact basin with a mountain in the middle.
Siderite is an iron carbonate mineral. Its presence in spacious rocks formed billions of years ago gives evidence that Mars once had a dense environment rich in carbon dioxide, a gas that warmed the planet to the point through the greenhouse effect that it could maintain the body of liquid water on its surface.
There are characteristics on the Martian landscape that many scientists have interpreted as signs that were once flowing on its surface, potential oceans, lakes, and rivers were considered as potential houses for previous microbial lives.
Carbon dioxide is the main climate-regulation of greenhouse gas on Earth, as it is on Mars and Venus. Its presence in the atmosphere heats the heat from the sun, the climate.
So far, the evidence indicates that the first Martian atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide, it has become sparse. The hypothesis is that when the atmosphere, for not fully understanding, developed from thick and rich in carbon dioxide and to be thin and hungry of this gas, carbon entered the rocks in the planet’s crust as a carbonate minerals through geo -reflective processes.
Samples obtained by curiosity, which takes down 1.2 to 1.6 inches (3-4 cm) down into the rock to study their chemical and mineral composition, gives weight to this perception. The samples contain 10.5% cedarite by weight, as determined by a device on the car-shaped, six-wheel rover.
“One of the longest mysteries in the study of Martian planet growth and habit is: If a large amount of carbon dioxide is required to heat the planet and stabilize liquid water, why are there so low detections of carbonate minerals on the martian surface?” The University of Calgary GeoCEMINT Benjamin Tutollo said, “NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover team scientist and prominent writer of the study published in Journal Science on Thursday.”
Tutolo said, “The model estimates that carbonate minerals should become widespread. But, till date, the rover-based investigation and martian surface satellite-based orbital surveys found very little evidence of their appearance,” Tutolo said.
Because the rock similar to the sample by the rover is recognized globally on Mars, researchers suspect that it also has an abundance of carbonate minerals and a large part of carbon dioxide that once heats Mars.
The Gail Creater Steam rocks – Sandstone and Mudstone – were believed to have been deposited about 3.5 billion years ago, when it was a lake site and a dramatic change before the Martian climate.
Edwin Kit, co-writer at the University of Chicago and Estera Institute and Estera Institute, said, “The shift of the surface of more living Mars in the past, apparently sterile, is the biggest ingredient environmental destruction today.”
“We do not know the reason for this change, but Mars today has a very thin carbon dioxide environment, and there is evidence that the atmosphere was thick in the past. It understands where the carbon had gone, so the discovery of a major unwanted deposit of carbon-rich material is an important new clue,” Kite said.
The findings of the rover provide insight into the carbon cycle on ancient Mars.
On Earth, volcanic atmosphere spills carbon dioxide, and the gas is absorbed by surface water – mainly the ocean – and combines with elements such as calcium to form limestone rock. Through the geological process called plate tectonics, this rock is re -heated and carbon is eventually left again through the volcano. Mars, however, lacks plate tectonics.
“The important feature of the ancient Martian carbon cycle that we outline in this study is that it was unbalanced. In other words, much more carbon dioxide feels that the rocks were sequected in the rocks, later released into the atmosphere,” Tutolo said.
Tutolo said, “Martian climate development models can now include our new analysis, and in turn help maintain the role of this unbalanced carbon cycle, and eventually lost, lost, lost, lost, lost,” Tutolo said.
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