Drilling solves mystery of missing carbonate on Mars
New findings from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity could provide an answer to the mystery of what happened to the planet’s ancient atmosphere and how Mars has evolved over time.
Researchers have long believed that Mars once had a thick, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere and liquid water on the planet’s surface. That carbon dioxide and water should have reacted with Martian rocks to create carbonate minerals. Until now, though, rover missions and near infrared spectroscopy analysis from Mars-orbiting satellites haven’t found the amounts of carbonate on the planet’s surface predicted by this theory.
In a paper to be published April 18 in Science, data from three of Curiosity’s drill sites revealed the presence of siderite, an iron carbonate mineral, within the sulfate-rich rocky layers of Mount Sharp in Mars’ Gale Crater.
The discovery of this mineral in rocks close to the surface suggests that there was in fact an ancient Martian atmosphere, which contained enough carbon dioxide to be warm enough to support liquid water existing on the planet’s surface.