Water formed 4.4 billion years ago on the surface of Mars

A window to the world – a team of Japanese researchers has revealed that water on Mars or the red planet originated around 4.4 billion years ago.

Several years ago, a pair of dark meteorites were discovered in the Sahara Desert, which they named NWA 7034 and NWA 7533.

Analysis showed that these meteorites are new types of Martian meteorites, which are a mixture of different rock fragments, rocks like these are rare and can fetch up to $ 10,000 per gram.

More recently, 50 grams of NWA 7533 were obtained for analysis by the international team which included Professor Takashi Mikuchi of the University of Tokyo.

Micucci said in a research article published in

Science Advances, Our NWA 7533 samples underwent four different types of spectroscopy and chemical fingerprint detection methods, and the results led our team to draw some interesting conclusions.

It is well known to planetary scientists that water was present on Mars at least 3.7 billion years ago.

But thanks to the meteorite’s mineral makeup, Micucci and his team revealed that water likely existed much earlier, around 4.4 billion years ago.

Micucci said: “Igneous rocks, or decaying rocks, in a meteorite are formed from magma and are usually caused by

Shock and oxidation. ”

This oxidation could occur if there was water present on or in the crust of Mars 4.4 billion years ago in an effect that melted part of the crust.

“Our analysis also indicates that such an effect would have released a lot of hydrogen, which would have contributed to global warming at a time when Mars already had a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide,” he added.

If there was water on Mars earlier than expected, this indicates that water may have been a natural byproduct of some process early in the planet’s formation.

The discovery could help researchers answer the question of the source of the water, which in turn could influence theories regarding the origins of life and the exploration of life beyond Earth.