Vishwam Sankaran wrote this article in The Independent:
Scientists have discovered the presence of water-altered minerals and organic compounds on the Red Planet that suggest water may have streamed across the Martian terrain billions of years ago.
Researchers, including planetary scientist Eva Scheller from MIT, used the SHERLOC instrument aboard the Perseverance Mars rover to measure the chemical composition of rock samples from the Jezero Crater - the site of an ancient lake and river bed.
They published the results in a trio of papers in the journals Science and Science Advances on Wednesday.
Since the Perseverance rover landed on the Jezero crater on Mars in February 2021, scientists have been analysing data collected by the craft to look for signs of water and organic chemicals indicative of the presence of ancient life on Mars.
The area around the Jezero Crater has been of particular interest to scientists as they suspect it was likely once a river delta.
“These kinds of environments on Earth are places where life thrives,” astrobiologist Amy Williams, one of the long-term planners for the Perseverance mission from the University of Florida in the US, had said.
“The goal of exploring the Jezero delta and crater is to look in these once-habitable environments for rocks that might contain evidence of ancient life,” Dr Williams said.
In one of the new studies, researchers revealed the presence of carbonate mingled with grains of olivine in the oldest volcanic igneous rock on the crater floor.
These results suggest water may have once percolated through these rocks, scientists said.
“Reactions with liquid water formed carbonates in an olivine-rich igneous rock,” they wrote in the study.
Scientists also found traces of phosphate - a key building block for life - in these rocks.
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