discovered on Mars ancient habitable environment, similar to that of Earth

The Curiosity probe was essential for finding manganese in rocks. It is an environment on Mars that suggests it had habitable conditions in other times.

NASA’s Curiosity probe found high levels of manganese in rocks from the bed of an ancient lake inside Gale Crater in Mars.

This new discovery suggests that, on Mars, there was an environment similar to that of Earth, with habitable conditions.

“It is difficult for manganese oxide to form on the surface of Mars, so we did not expect to find it in such high concentrations in a coastal deposit,” says study lead author Patrick Gasda.

At Earth is usual find these deposits, because there is a lot oxygen in the atmosphere, produced by photosynthetic life and microbes, which contribute to accelerating manganese oxidation reactions.

This substance was a useful source of energy – if there was life on the planet. “On Mars, we have no evidence of life, and the mechanism for producing oxygen in the planet’s ancient atmosphere is unclear.”

“So it’s really intriguing see that manganese oxide was formed and concentrated here”, commented Gasda, quoted in EurekAlert!.

This finding suggests that there were “larger processes occurring in Mars’ atmosphere or surface water, and shows that more work is needed to understand oxidation on Mars.”

This discovery was made by the Curiosity spacecraft’s ChemCam. The camera uses a laser to form a plasma on the surface of a rock and collects that light to quantify its elemental composition.

When analyzing sedimentary rocks, scientists found a mixture of sand, silt and mud.

Because sandy rocks are more porous, groundwater flows more easily than in mudstones.

Researchers believe that the manganese was concentrated in those sands due to water infiltration along the lake shore or at the entrance to a delta.