Posted on 05/21/2007 5:48:56 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
PASADENA, Calif. - The Mars rover Spirit has uncovered the strongest evidence yet that ancient Mars was wetter than previously thought, scientists reported Monday.
The robot analyzed a patch of soil in Gusev Crater and found it was unusually rich in silica. Scientists said the presence of water was necessary to produce such a large silica deposit.
"This is a remarkable discovery," principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University said in a statement. "It makes you wonder what else is still out there."
Spirit previously found clues of ancient water in the crater through the presence of sulfur-rich soil, water-altered minerals and explosive volcanism. But the latest find is compelling because of the high silica content, researchers said, raising the possibility that conditions may have been favorable for the emergence of primitive life.
It's unclear how the silica deposit formed. One possibility is that the soil mixed with acid vapors in the presence of water. Others believe the deposit was created from water in a hot spring surrounding.
The durable Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, have been working on overtime since completing their primary, three-month mission in 2004.
For the past eight months, Opportunity has explored the rim of Victoria Crater on the opposite side of the planet. Scientists are looking for a safe opening to send the rover in.
The mission is managed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Mars Rover Spirit Unearths Surprise Evidence of Wetter Past (click for Full story)
05.21.07
A patch of Martian soil analyzed by NASA's rover Spirit is so rich in silica that it may provide some of the strongest evidence yet that ancient Mars was much wetter than it is now.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has found a patch of bright-toned soil so rich in silica that scientists propose water must have been involved in concentrating it.
The silica-rich patch, informally named "Gertrude Weise" after a player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, was exposed when Spirit drove over it during the 1,150th Martian day, or sol, of Spirit's Mars surface mission (March 29, 2007). One of Spirit's six wheels no longer rotates, so it leaves a deep track as it drags through soil. Most patches of disturbed, bright soil that Spirit had investigated previously are rich in sulfur, but this one has very little sulfur and is about 90 percent silica.
This image is a approximately true-color composite of three images taken through different filters by Spirit's panoramic camera on Sol 1,187 (May 6). The track of disturbed soil is roughly 20 centimeters (8 inches) wide.
Spirit's miniature thermal emission spectrometer, which can assess a target's mineral composition from a distance, examined the Gertrude Weise patch on Sol 1,172 (April 20).
The indications it found for silica in the overturned soil prompted a decision to drive Spirit close enough to touch the soil with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, a chemical analyzer at the end of Spirit's robotic arm. The alpha particle X-ray spectrometer collected data about this target on sols 1,189 and 1,190 (May 8 and May 9) and produced the finding of approximately 90 percent silica.
Silica is silicon dioxide. On Earth, it commonly occurs as the crystalline mineral quartz and is the main ingredient in window glass. The Martian silica at Gertrude Weise is non-crystalline, with no detectable quartz.
In most cases, water is required to produce such a concentrated deposit of silica, according to members of the rover science team. One possible origin for the silica could have been interaction of soil with acidic steam produced by volcanic activity. Another could have been from water in a hot spring environment.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
Just amazing that the two rovers are still operating. They have to be the best bang for the buck in space exploration history.
If you factor in Miles Per Buck, the Voyagers have a lock on the tropies
What happened to the water?
Okay, time for an eye test. I thought it said “proof of wet pasta on Mars.”
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/why.html
“Under either the warmer-and-wetter or the always-cold scenario, Mars must have had a thicker atmosphere in order to support water that flowed on the surface even only occasionally. If the planet’s atmosphere became thinner, liquid water would rapidly evaporate. Over time, carbon dioxide gas reacts with elements in rocks and becomes locked up as a kind of compound called a carbonate. What’s left of Mars’ atmosphere today is overwhelmingly carbon dioxide.”
Good question.
speculation is that it has been absorbed into the soil .. water vapor is given off as part of a seasonal warming of the polar cap
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/follow/index.html
http://humbabe.arc.nasa.gov/MarsToday/MarsWater.html
The Case of the Missing Mars Water
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast05jan_1.htm
“Global Warming”..... (PUKE !!!!!!)
“The durable Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, have been working on overtime since completing their primary, three-month mission in 2004.’
This is just amazing.
So Mars is red due to an abundance of Marinara Sauce!
Means Columbus got there first again! :-)
I don’t know about this. It all sounds like meatball science to me. ;-P
Thanks
Scientists said the presence of water was necessary to produce such a large silica deposit... It's unclear how the silica deposit formed. One possibility is that the soil mixed with acid vapors in the presence of water. Others believe the deposit was created from water in a hot spring surrounding.Water was necessary, but it's unclear how it formed, IOW, water wasn't necessary, and they don't have any idea how it formed.
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