[ad_1]
London
A solid crust, able to harbor oceans with water and life, emerged on Mars about 130 million years before the Earth's surface solidified, say the scientists who badyzed a rare meteorite called Black Beauty. The first surface of Mars consisting of an ocean of liquid magma has crystallized extremely rapidly, just 20 million years after the formation of the solar system
thereafter, a solid crust emerged on the red planet. 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 of life on Mars
The formation of crust is an important step in the development of terrestrial planets , and what makes Black Beauty special and expensive, is that it contains small pieces of Mars crust.
Specifically, Black Beauty contains rare mineral zircon, in which researchers found a high concentration of hafnium
"Zircon is a very robust mineral that is ideal for providing absolute ages. zircons can be used to establish a time frame to understand the history of the formation of the Martian crust, "said Martin Bizzarro, from the University of Copenhagen in Den
" Zircon also acts as a small time capsule because it preserves information on the environment where and when it was created, "said Bizzarro
" In this case, a time capsule with hafnium that comes from earlier. "Thus, Mars took an early departure from the Earth, whose solid crust did not form until much later," he said. However, it took some courage to achieve this result
The 319.8-gram black meteorite was found in the Sahara Desert in 2011. It soon became apparent that the meteorite was something special and it was currently a selling price of about $ 10,000 per gram.
A year ago, Bizzarro managed to acquire 44 grams of Black Beauty with the help of various funding agencies and meteorite exchange from the museum's collection. "One of the big challenges was that Black Beauty's zircons are extremely small, which 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 possibly also life, "he said. PTI
[ad_2]
Source link
