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Scientists have learned a lot about Mars in recent years. According to the observations of the sophisticated equipment that NASA has sent to the red planet, we know that it once contained a lot more water than what we see today. But knowing that a long time ago there was a lot of water (or at least abundant ice) on Mars does not necessarily tell us what the climate was like.
Without a time machine, we can not know exactly what the old Mars looked like, but the researchers put forward a pretty solid assumption. Using NASA's CRISM spectrometer and Curiosity robot data, scientists have a good idea of the types of minerals present in Martian soil. By using various regions of the Earth as analogues, they can observe the conditions that have caused similar mineral deposition patterns on our planet and assume that similar climates are also responsible for their formation on Mars.
At the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Barcelona this week, Briony Horgan, a professor at Purdue University, announced the results of a new research effort comparing the climate of the Earth today to that of the planet. 39, old Mars.
"Our study of alteration under radically different climatic conditions, such as the Cascades in Oregon, Hawaii, Iceland and other places on Earth, can show us how climate affects the structure of mineral deposits, as we see on Mars, "said Horgan. "This leads us to believe that 3 to 4 billion years ago, we had a slow general trend from hot to cold, with periods of thaw and freezing."
The study delves deeply into the nuances of various mineral deposits such as silica, which, according to scientists, suggest melting ice. This suggests that the planet has had some ups and downs in temperature, with warm periods of occasional rain, then colder periods when everything is frozen.
Mars is now glacial compared to the Earth, which is largely due to the fact that the atmosphere of the planet has been almost completely destroyed. Billions of years ago, the planet would have had a much more robust atmosphere that would have helped retain heat. A temperate climate with rain and flowing water sounds like a recipe for life as we know it, but we may have to wait to see what the March 2020 rover will have to say about it when he will arrive at the beginning of 2021.
Image Source: NASA / JPL-Caltech
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