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A solid crust, able to harbor oceans with water and life, appeared on Mars about 130 million years before the Earth's surface solidified, say scientists who badyzed a rare meteorite called "Black Beauty". Mars consisted of an ocean of liquid magma crystallized extremely rapidly, only 20 million years after the formation of the solar system.
Subsequently, a solid crust appeared on the red planet, able to house the oceans with water and life. It was about 130 million years before a corresponding solid crust appeared on Earth.
Researchers at the Museum of Natural History in Denmark have found new evidence for this rapid crystallization and crust formation on Mars.
The study, based on badysis The rare meteorite of Black Beauty, Black Beauty, greatly expands the window for life on Mars
Crust formation is an important step in the development of telluric planets, and what makes Black Beauty special and expensive, is that it contains small pieces of the Mars crust.
Specifically, Black Beauty contains rare mineral zircon, in which researchers found a high concentration of hafnium
"Zircon is a very hardy mineral that is ideal for providing absolute ages. background, zircons can be used to establish a time frame for understanding the history of the formation of the Martian crust, "said Martin Bizzarro, of University of Copenhagen." Zircon also acts as a small time capsule because it preserves information about the environment where and when it was created, "said Bizzarro.
" In this case, a time capsule with hafnium that comes from the oldest crust of Mars, which was present about 100 million years before the creation of the oldest zircon of Black Beauty. "19659002" Thus, Mars took an early departure from the Earth, whose solid crust did not form "
It took a certain courage to achieve this result
. The 319.8-gram heavy meteorite Black Beauty was discovered in the Sahara desert in 2011. It soon became clear that a year ago, Bizzarro managed to acquire 44 grams of Black Beauty with the help of various funding organizations and meteorite exchanges from the museum's collection [en anglais seulement]
. 19659002 "One of the great challenges was that the zircons of Black Beauty are extremely small.This required a brave strategy: we crushed our precious meteorite.Or to be precise: We crushed five grams," said Bizzarro.
"He released seven zircons, one of which is the oldest zircon known to Mars.And from the zircons and their hafnium content, we can now conclude that the crystallization of the surface of Mars is became extremely fast: already 20 million years after the formation of the solar system, Mars had a solid crust that could potentially harbor the oceans and "(19659017) (This story was not published by the staff of Business Standard and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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