Scientists have unearthed what appears to be the oldest direct evidence of hot water flowing on Mars in its ancient past. This discovery could suggest that despite its current barren state, the Red Planet may have once been capable of sustaining life.
The evidence was found within the famous Martian meteorite NWA7034, also known as “Black Beauty.” which landed in the Sahara Desert in 2011. At an estimated two billion years old, Black Beauty is the second oldest Martian meteorite ever found.
However, something even older was discovered within it by the team at Curtin University: a 4.45 billion year old zircon grain containing traces of water-rich fluids. Aaron Cavosie, a member of the team from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, believes this discovery will pave the way for new insights the history of Mars and if life existed there.
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“We used nano-scale geochemistry to detect elemental evidence of hot water on Mars 4.45 billion years ago,” Cavosie said, hinting that the Red Planet might have been a cosmic waterpark in its early days.
(Image: NASA)
Following up, Cavosie shared that their squad pinpointed particular elements in a one-of-a-kind zircon fragment via super-small imaging revealing the Martian nugget’s mix of iron, aluminum, yttrium, and sodium.
“These elements were added as the zircon formed 4.45 billion years ago, suggesting water was present during early Martian magmatic activity,” the expert revealed.
It was already thought that water was present on the red planet about four billion years ago, but with new signs of even older damp dirt spotted by this team, it could mean water was present even longer ago, and the longer water has been present for, the more chance life could have formed.
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