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A team of scientists from the US Space Agency announced Thursday, July 8, 2021 that evidence of ancient life on the surface of Mars had been “wiped out” after the US spacecraft “Curiosity” discovered that parts of the The Red’s rocky disc planet had been wiped out.
Mars contains more ancient rocks and minerals than Earth and in an attempt to gather more information on the history of the planet, the Curiosity rover was dispatched. Using an instrument to determine “chemical and metallurgical X-ray deflection,” the scientists compared samples taken from two regions about 400 meters apart.
Surprisingly, they discovered that half of the minerals they expected to find in a region are missing and have been replaced by stones rich in iron oxides, which give Mars its red color.
According to Tom Bristow, Principal Investigator at NASA, “We thought that once these layers of clay minerals formed at the bottom of Gale Crater, they would stay that way and maintain the position they were in billions of years ago. ‘years. But later the brine solutions broke them down. ”Clay minerals or so-called clay minerals.
Scientists believe these results show the effects of climate change on Mars that happened a long time ago, and NASA already knew that before the water in Gale Crater dried up, groundwater was moving under the surface, dissolving and hiding chemicals that scientists could study.
For John Grotzinger, associate researcher at Caltech, these places are “excellent for looking for evidence of ancient life and measuring habitability. Although the weathering of sedimentary rocks can erase the original signs of life, it creates the chemical gradients necessary to provide structure to life. beneath the surface. So we are really eager to find out. “
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