Whereas most individuals looking for indicators of alien life nowadays may need their eyes on the exoplanet K2-18b, one group of researchers is conserving their sights just a little nearer to residence.
Texas A&M researcher Michael Tice and a group of worldwide scientists have revealed new clues about Mars’ potential to have supported life, due to knowledge collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
Since 2021, Perseverance has been exploring Mars’ Jezero Crater, utilizing its cell laboratory to assist the work of scientists around the globe. Tice and his group, specifically, have been utilizing Perseverance to investigate Martian rocks. Their aim is to check the planet’s volcanic and hydrological historical past, searching for indicators that Mars may need as soon as been liveable.
By means of their analysis, the group has found two forms of mineral-rich volcanic rocks: a darkish rock with iron, magnesium, pyroxene and plagioclase feldspar, in addition to a light-toned trachyandesite with plagioclase crystals and potassium.
Simulating the formation of the rocks’ minerals by means of thermodynamic modeling, the researchers decided that Mars has a really advanced volcanic historical past — one that may have been capable of present the important thing compounds wanted for all times.
“The processes we see right here — fractional crystallization and crustal assimilation — occur in energetic volcanic programs on Earth,” Tice mentioned in a statement. “It means that this a part of Mars might have had extended volcanic exercise, which in flip may have supplied a sustained supply for various compounds utilized by life.”
As superior as Perseverance is, its toolkit remains to be restricted in comparison with what we’ve right here on Earth, so there’s solely a lot we will study samples from afar. As such, Tice seems to be ahead to NASA’s deliberate Mars Pattern Return mission to conduct additional analysis on the volcanic rock.
“We’ve rigorously chosen these rocks as a result of they include clues to Mars’ previous environments,” Tice mentioned. “Once we get them again to Earth and may analyze them with laboratory devices, we’ll be capable to ask rather more detailed questions on their historical past and potential organic signatures.”
The group’s analysis was printed within the journal Science Advances on Jan. 24, 2025.
