New Findings Suggest Mars Might Have Supported Life
Scientists observing the surface of Mars have made a discovery suggesting that life on the red planet may have existed a billion years ago. The hypothesis was reached after finding that one of its ancient lakes had multiple environments, making it possible for microbial life to have thrived.
These findings were based on specimen found in Mars' Gale crater which is analyzed by the Mars rover, Curiosity. The car-sized rover landed inside the 96-mile wide Gale Crater in August 2012 to determine how conditions in ancient Martian history may have been conducive to life.
Mission scientists analyzed the geochemical and mineralogical data Curiosity gathered on lakebed rock during its first 1,300 Martian days (one Martian day or sol is equivalent to 24 hours and 40 minutes on Earth). The rocks came from a variety of depths, allowing the researchers to see how changes took place in the rocks' chemical and mineral features over the years.
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They determined that the crater was a home to a habitable lake and stream system where life existed for around 700,000 years between 3.8 billion and 3.1 billion years. This was made possible by the changing climate in Mars from a frigid planet that warmed up, enough to have allowed life to exist.
Another ingredient necessary to the recipe of life is oxygen which the Gale Crater possessed, making it potentially able sustain microbial life. Other life forms that fed microbes may have also thrived. Curiosity continues to gather sediment samples that could bolster these speculations.
"One of the things we're really learning from Gale crater is that Mars—in its ancient geological history — really was home to environments that were very Earth-like in their quality," said study author Joel Hurowitz. "We're talking about a lake that was being fed by freshwater rivers, it was a standing body of water that was there for a long period of time that had lake chemistry very similar to what we see on Earth," he added.
