Sydney:
Australian researchers have discovered the oldest direct evidence of warm water activity on Mars, showing the planet may once have been habitable.
In a study published Saturday, a team led by researchers from Curtin University in Western Australia analyzed a 4.45 billion-year-old zircon grain from the famous Martian meteorite NWA7034, also known as Black Beauty, which was found in the Sahara in 2011. . .
The researchers found that the grain of zircon, a type of mineral, contained geochemical fingerprints of water-rich fluids, indicating that water was present during Mars' early magmatic activity.
Aaron Cavosie, co-author of the study from Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the discovery would open new avenues for understanding ancient Martian hydrothermal systems, as well as the planet's ability to support life.
“We used nanoscale geochemistry to detect elemental evidence of hot water on Mars 4.45 billion years ago,” he said, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Hydrothermal systems were essential for the development of life on Earth and our findings suggest that Mars also had water, a key ingredient for habitable environments, during its earliest history of crust formation.”
He said that although Mars' crust suffered large meteorite impacts that caused surface upheavals, the research shows that water was present on the planet during the early Pre-Noachian period prior to about 4.1 billion years ago.
The study also involved researchers from the University of Adelaide and was led by Jack Gillespie, a former research associate at Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, now at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
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