Rover finds volcanic rock on Mars: it shouldn’t be there

Information publication Space with reference to Ken Farley (Ken Farley), professor of geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology, today, August 26, published a very interesting information. The fact is that the Perseverance rover made an incredibly unexpected discovery at the bottom of the Martian crater Ezeor – this spacecraft stumbled upon deposits of volcanic rock. Here it is worth clarifying that such a rock could be formed only in the case of direct contact of red-hot magma emerging from the vent of the volcano with liquid water. And although scientists have long gotten used to the idea that there was liquid water on Mars, this discovery completely changes the attitude towards the “red planet”.

For quite a long time, it was assumed that the Lake crater is a basin of an ancient lake transformed by time, gravity and many other factors, which many billions of years ago was filled with completely ordinary liquid water. Accordingly, scientists planned to find exclusively sedimentary rocks in this crater, which naturally formed from the mud and sediments of the lake billions of years ago. Now the situation has changed dramatically – scientists need to completely change their attitude towards Mars and hypotheses about the cycle of existence of this planet.

“Most of the scientists expected to study the rocks deposited by the lake, and it took us quite a long time to come to terms with the fact that the rocks at the bottom of the crater are igneous,” said Farley.

Now experts from all over the world will have to work hard to properly use this information, which, according to Ken Farley, is the key to unraveling the entire climate history of Mars. He believes that now it is possible to determine quite accurately when exactly this planet had water and, most importantly, to give an answer to what period of its development this planet could theoretically be inhabited. In addition, now scientists clearly need to expand this space mission, because there are no obvious volcanic formations anywhere near the Lake Lake crater.

Source: Trash Box

You may also like