17-04-2025
Incredible discovery hints at life on Mars: 'Right conditions'
Water was not only present across much of the Martian surface, it existed for a long time.
Tiny crystals found just below the surface of Mars are helping scientists unravel the mystery of whether life once existed on its surface.
An Aussie-led research team used data collected by NASA's Perseverance rover to examine tiny sulphate mineral deposits. Because their presence is associated with water, they are able to form a picture of how it once flowed around the planet over a prolonged period.
'Instead of just having evidence that water was there, we now have evidence that water was there for a long time,' lead researcher Dr Michael Jones of the Queensland University of Technology told Yahoo News. 'When Mars had an atmosphere, all the right conditions [for life] were there.'
Life didn't take long to evolve on Earth once conditions were favourable, so it's plausible that microbial life was once present on Mars, and then became extinct after the atmosphere was destroyed.
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Previous missions to the red planet were focused on where water existed, but the current mission is focused on searching for biosignatures or 'fingerprints' associated with early life.
'We're looking for patterns that on Earth are created by biology. It's a lot harder to do on another planet,' Jones said.
What was Mars like when it was covered in water?
The data was gathered using a device developed at the Australian Synchrotron facility in Melbourne by a former student at QUT, Abigail Allwood. The PIXL instrument provided insights into how and when crystals grew and what it was like to be on Mars at that time.
'It would have been relatively wet. The water probably wouldn't have been what you would imagine a lake to be, it would have had a much higher salt content, almost like a Dead Sea,' Jones said.
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'We have evidence that the inflow was quite rapid and strong. There are some big boulders that are within this sedimentary fan… But there was no vegetation, and that would be the stark difference to Earth.'
The research was published in the journal Science Advances on Thursday. It highlights the team's pioneering use of a method called X-ray Backscatter Diffraction Mapping (XBDM) which produces a clearer 'fingerprint' of how and when the crystals grew.
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