[ad_1]
While scientists continue to study the history of Mars and its potential to host microbial life, a group of researchers discovered that the solid crust of the planet, which encompasses the rocky world, does not it's formed only 20 million years.
The discovery indicates that the outer layer of the surface of the red planet hardened 4,547 million years ago. This means that our neighboring world has satisfied one of the most crucial conditions for hosting life at least 100 million years before the Earth reaches to complete the processes that have shaped our world by what it is.
Crust formation is the quintessence of life. it happened so fast on Mars, there is a good chance that it also hosted a thick atmosphere, liquid water and maybe life at about the same time. "19659002" is much earlier than the Earth. Said Martin Bizzarro, author of the study for the Center for Star and Planet Training (CSPF), at Newsweek. "Note that this is speculative and requires additional evidence."
Previous work has suggested that the Martian crust – the final product of the planet's formation – has taken at least 100 million years to form. But, the last work of Bizzarro and his colleagues completely changes this point of view.
came to these results after looking closely at a Martian rock found in the Sahara Desert in 2011. Today Each gram of this precious meteorite, nicknamed "Black Beauty", costs $ 10,000, but in 2014, Bizzarro acquired it in exchange for other precious rocks. It got up to 44 grams and crushed five to extract samples of a rare mineral known as zircon.
Also found on Earth, zircons serve as archaeologists' favorite dating tool. They retain information about the environments in which they were formed and act as time capsules providing scientists with a critical overview of the period in question.
In this case, the researchers sampled zircons and were able to measure the size of the zircons. age of decomposing uranium. , which has been trapped in the mineral as the melted Martian magma solidifies to form the crust of the planet. The process revealed the age of the Martian crust in which the zircons were formed.
"We discovered the oldest minerals – zircons from Mars," Bizzarro told Newsweek. "These zircons, which are about 100 million years older than the oldest terrestrial zircons (Earth), tell us that Mars has evolved much earlier than the Earth."
The results of this study also lend credence to although recently suggested theory of planet formation. According to this method, called "pebble accretion", particles forming planets the size of one centimeter to one meter accumulate in layers to support the rapid growth of the planet. This method, as described by the researchers, is much faster than the other, a more conventional theory that suggests that planets begin as dust particles that coalesce on 50 to 100 million years ago. years to form a young planet.
Rapid Crystallization of the Magmatic Ocean and Crust Formation on Mars "was published June 27 in the journal Nature.
[ad_2]
Source link
