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Leopard Spots on Mars, seen by perseverance rover that could help specify the signs of life. | Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS
Only a little more than a week after scientists announced that NASA’s perseverance Rover could detect a possible Biosgigat in Mars Rock, named Sapphire Canyon, a new study shows that similar living conditions were widespread throughout the Jezero crater – the place of the main discovery.
During the study, scientists identified 24 minerals, which diagrams Jezero changes the environment, emphasizing both the volcanic origins of the rock in the crater and their long history of interaction with water. Although the study does not analyze Example of sapphire canyon Directly, it shows that the crater as all episodes of water activity, everyone has conditions that could support life (as we know it).
“There were several times in Mars’ history when these specific volcanic rock communicated Liquid water“The leading author of the study Eleanor Moreland of Rice University Texas said a a statement“And so more than once, when there was an environment in this place that can be suitable for life.”
The study is based on three -year data collected by perseverance, which explored Jezer after 2021. Happened to Mars. With the Rover X -ray instrument (Pixl) and a newly created algorithm called Mist, researchers could identify minerals and collect the so -called “mineral archive” from the crater.
Minerals are natural narrators that form specific temperature, chemistry and pH combinations. They reveal three stages of water rock interaction, each with different effects on acceptability, the new study notes. In order to ensure accuracy, the team has performed over thousands of statistical modeling – a process that equates to a meteorologist model for Hurricane tracks – takes into account the errors of the device and attributes the levels of confidence to each match, the statement said.
The oldest rocks on the crater floor had signs of hot, acidic fluids recorded in minerals such as greenalitis, hyseinger and ferroaluminoceladonitis. These conditions would have been the least favorable for life, says scientists, as high temperature and low pH are known to damage biological structures.
“These hot, acidic conditions would be the most difficult for life,” says Rice University, associate professor of the Earth, Environment and Planetary Sciences. “But on earth, life can persist even in an extreme environment, such as acidic water bodies in the city of Yellowstone, so it does not exclude fitness.”
Subsequent episodes of water activity, leaving minerals such as Minnesotaite and Clinoptylolite, which have been formed in cooler, neutral waters that would have been more friendly to germs, reports in the study.
Finally, the researchers found wide septiolith-mineral, which is formed by low temperatures, alkaline waters at low temperatures, stored for very hospitable Earth. Its presence in all regions has been investigated by the Pakarinlence, showing a wide episode of living conditions, scientists say.
The artist’s view of the Martian Sample Return (MSR) ascension module rising from the surface of Mars with examples of Mars soil. | Credit: ESA
“These minerals tell us that Jezero has moved from stricter, hot, acidic fluids to more neutral and alkaline time – conditions we think about as increasingly supportive life,” Moreland said in a statement.
In addition to these changes minerals, the team also confirmed that volcanic building blocks such as pyroxen, field and olivin Formed by ancient lava flows later transformed with water;
New conclusions also add context Last year’s headlinesWhen the work of perseverance in Cheyava Waterfalls – where Sapphire Canyon was taken, revealed intriguing features of conditions, often related to microbial life. At the time, scientists described this as the strongest evidence that Mars once could have organized primitive organisms, although they stressed that no biological explanations such as certain mineral reactions due to heating were not rejected.
Since then, further analyzes have not found that the rock has been heated, but the researchers have cautiously warned that only laboratory tests on Earth could resolve biological and nonbiological debate.
“We are almost close to what Rover can do on the surface,” Katie Stack Morgan, California, California, a perseverance project scientist in California, California, California. said at a press conference last week September 10th “It was a design. The stubborn Rover useful cargo was selected according to the Martian sample return efforts; The idea was to force us to attract us to the possible appointment of Biosgigat for our useful cargo, and the rest of the story was told by “instruments” here on Earth. “
Each pipe placed on Mars could consider the essential piece of puzzle – and perhaps the first direct evidence of life outside the Earth. However, the road to bring them home and remains unclear. After many years of expenditure, NASA announced in January that this would learn cheaper alternatives For the Mars Sample Returns (MSR) program, which would be aimed at providing samples by 2035. Agency 2026 The budget offer nevertheless requires submitting Recalling the program;
“We believe that there is a better way to do this, a faster way to recover these examples,” said NASA temporary administrator Sean Duffy. Press conference He did not offer any information on costs, time or technical approach last week.
Meanwhile, China is pushes forward with your Mars Mission Mission. The Tianwen-3 mission aims to collect at least 500 grams of Mars rock and soil as early as 2028. And return them to the land by 2031-Galima beat NASA to the stage. If successful, China would secure the first examples of Mars and do a Dramatic leap in the leadership of planets.
In addition to revealed by Martian mineral history, the new Mist algorithm, created by the authors of the study, could appear to critically decide which rock to return to the ground, the new study notes. By determining minerals and attributing the level of confidence in each detection, it helps the mission scientists give priority to the most valuable samples. Such a catalog associated with specific sampling sites would be vital when choosing which core returns to the MSR program.
“The results presented here can be very important when selected, which samples, if not all, are returned to the ground,” the researchers wrote in the study.
The study was September 11, published. Geophysical Research.