Scientists used the NASA’s Curiosity space rover to analyze samples collected in Gale Crater on Mars and discover more about the climate changes that have turned the surface of the red planet inhospitable to terrestrial life .
When looking for clues about possible life support that the Martian star could have, researchers found carbon-rich minerals that point to a large amount of water evaporation from the surface.
Currently, Mars’ climate makes terrestrial life impossible, but evidence shows the possibility of liquid water being widespread on its surface in the past.
By analyzing the isotopes (variants of the same chemical element) of carbon-rich minerals — carbonates — found in Gale Crater, scientists discovered that the composition of the planet’s atmosphere has changed.
“The isotopic values of these carbonates point to large amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only sustain liquid water temporarily,” said David Burtt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and author of the article that describes the research, published last Monday (7) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
These compounds keep a climate record of what the planet was like in the past — allowing us to visualize what the temperature, acidity and composition of the water and atmosphere were like.
With samples from Mars, scientists made two hypotheses about changes in the Martian climate: first, carbonates form through cycles of moisture and drought in Gale Crater; in the second, the compounds form in very salty water under ice-forming conditions.
“Cycles of wetness and dryness would indicate alternation between more and less habitable environments, while cryogenic temperatures in the mid-latitudes of Mars would indicate a less habitable environment, where most of the water is trapped in ice and is not available for chemical or biological reactions, and what is there is extremely salty and unpleasant for life,” said Jennifer Stern, co-author of the article.
This content was originally published in NASA mission finds clues to what made Mars uninhabitable; understand on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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