Washington, March 3
The ancient surface of the red planet Mars
was once soaked with water and conditions may have existed for life there, the
US space agency announced.
The Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where
water once drenched the surface,” Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA’s
Office of Space Science, told reporters yesterday.
The evidence, he added, was
“a giant leap” toward determining whether life could have existed on
Mars.
Using an array of photographs, spectrometer data and scientific
deductions from the Opportunity, NASA scientists said that a rock near where the
robot landed offered the most detailed, convincing and precise evidence that
water once existed on the red planet.
A rock near the rover’s landing site,
that the scientists have dubbed El Capitan, offered multiple intersecting clues
of the existence of water, said Steve Squyres, a Cornell scientist and principal
investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover.
Little spherical objects, which
Squyres said looked “like blueberries in a muffin,” stood out on the rock
surface. The objects suggested that water within the rocks had concreted around
nuclei, forming the spheres, Squyres said.
“Concretions form when there is
liquid water inside rock,” said Squyres.
Scientists also discovered tell-tale
signs of crystals, and spectrometer analyses — taken after the rover drilled
several millimeters into the surface of the rock — showed the presence of
sulfur.
Benton C. Clark III, chief scientist of space exploration at Lockheed
Martin Space Systems Astronautics Operations, said the rocks probably contained
magnesium sulfate — a drier version of what can be purchased here on earth at
any pharmacy: Epsom salts. The compound again points to the presence of
water.
“What an amazing time to be alive doing science on Mars,” exclaimed Jim
Garvin, NASA’s lead scientist for Mars and the
Moon. The discovery, he said,
would alter future missions.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, he said, would
next look for evidence of ancient seas. And NASA would begin work on one of the
most challenging tasks ever devised by the space agency. — PTI
