NASA Discovers New Evidence to Suggest Water On Mars

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By Ann-Marie Alcántara2014-03-02 17:04:54 UTC

The debate of whether or not water and life on Mars ever existed is back: a group of scientists believe they may have found evidence to support this theory.

This new evidence is a Martian meteorite with a history of water movement, suggesting there may have been life on Mars before.

The analysis on the meteorite showed microscopic tunnels in the interior of the meteorite and little blobs of carbon-rich minerals embedded within layers of rock. These two findings usually suggest ancient weathering through biological processes, meaning that microbes could've lived on Mars many moons ago.

Spheroidal Features in Yamato Meteorite From Mars

An area with the spheres, circled in red, was found to have about twice as much carbon present as an area (circled in blue) without the spheres.

While this may provide some evidence of life on Mars, the authors note “that they cannot exclude the possibility that the carbon-rich regions in both sets of features may be the product of [other biological reasons].”

"This is no smoking gun," said Lauren White, lead author of the study to NASA. "We can never eliminate the possibility of contamination in any meteorite. But these features are nonetheless interesting and show that further studies of these meteorites should continue.”

The Martian meteorite formed about 1.3 billion years ago on Mars, before a water event ejected the rock around 12 million years ago. It only made landfall on Earth in Antarctica about 50,000 years ago. The difference between a Martian meteorite and most meteorites is its composition of oxygen atoms, silicate minerals and trapped Martian atmospheric gasses.

The team of scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Tx., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., made the discovery after the Martian meteorite, Yamato 000593, was found by the Japanese Research Expedition in Antarctica.

These findings and other revelations from the Yamato meteorite were published in the February issue of Astrobiology.

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Topics: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Johnson Space Center, Mars, meteorite, NASA, U.S., US & World, World

Image: iStockphoto, CreativeGraphicArts