NASA ’s Curiosity rover has just account a deluge of interesting chemicals on the slopes of Mount Sharp on Mars , providing a lot more clues about the quick , weewee - ample environment it used to have .
The plutonium - power rover has beenmaking its wayup the mountain since 2014 , and has analyze many dissimilar environs during its raise . It is presently search an area that used to be wet and that accumulated sediments over meter . Among these , Curiosity observed hematite , clay mineral , and , for the first sentence , Boron .
" There is so much variability in the piece of music at different ALT , we ’ve hit a jackpot , " say John Grotzinger , of Caltech in Pasadena , California , in astatement .
" A sedimentary basinful such as this is a chemical nuclear reactor . Elements get rearrange . Modern mineral work and old ones break up . negatron get redistribute . On Earth , these reaction endorse life . "
There ’s still no incontrovertible evidence for life on Mars , but our four - decennary - retentive study of the Red Planet has uncovered a complex geology both in the yesteryear and in the present . As the rover climb up Mount Sharp it is exploring young layers and never seen before feature of speech become all of a sudden patent .
" No prior foreign mission has detected boron on Mars , " bring Patrick Gasda of the US Department of Energy ’s Los Alamos National Laboratory , Los Alamos , New Mexico . " We ’re seeing a sharp increase in atomic number 5 in vein targets inspect in the past several months . ”
oddity uncovering of Boron . NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS / LANL / CNES - IRAP / William Rapin
The find of B was a snatch of a curveball for scientist . It is only a second quantity , one - tenth of 1 percentage of the rock report , but it ’s not clear how it got there . scientist believe it was either the evaporation of a lake or perhaps changes in the chemistry of the clay deposit . The latter musical theme is consistent with the alluviation of hematite find in the area .
" Variations in these mineral and elements indicate a active system . They interact with groundwater as well as open water . The water influences the chemistry of the remains , but the constitution of the water also change , " Grotzinger tot .
“ We are date chemical complexness suggest a long , synergistic history with the water . The more complicated the chemical science is , the proficient it is for habitableness . The boron , hematite , and clay minerals underline the mobility of elements and electrons , and that is good for sprightliness . "
It will be interesting to see if the higher ground continues to show this gain in chemicals .
