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curiosity silica

The showtime manned mission to Mars is yet a goal for the future, so the best nosotros tin practice to explore the Red Planet is to send robots. Curiosity has proven itself to be a good stand up-in for boots on the basis, though. After rolling farther than any rover earlier it, Curiosity has institute something new on Mars — silica. There's silica everywhere on Earth, but we haven't seen much of information technology on Mars before at present, and that'due south what makes this find and then important.

Our story starts seven months ago when Curiosity was passing through an area called Marias Pass. It stopped and used its ChemCam laser to drill into the rock to perform a mineral analysis, equally it had done at many points since landing on Mars in 2012. The data was acquired and Curiosity went forth its way upward Mount Precipitous. Then, NASA did something information technology almost never does — information technology turned the rover effectually and sent it back to do more science in Marias Laissez passer.

Information technology was the presence of silica in the sample that got scientists so excited. That sample analyzed by Curiosity showed concentrations of up to 90 percent silica, which is a big modify from seeing simply traces of silica in all previous samples. Curiosity spent the adjacent four months checking various areas around Marias Pass, which is where two unlike sediment layers converge, to see how extensive the silica enrichment was. It turns out, pretty extensive.

marias pass

The presence of silica is important considering it points to the presence of h2o in Mars' geologic past. Of course, we now know that Mars has a little flowing h2o, and that information technology had large lakes and flowing rivers in the by. Curiosity has found the dried lake and river beds, subsequently all. All those dry lake beds merely tell us there was water, not whether or not it would have been suitable for life. The water could have been besides salty or acidic for life to develop, and it'southward hard to know what conditions were similar millions of years agone. A loftier concentration of silica could, even so, help united states depict some conclusions about the nature of Martian water from ages agone.

Silica in these concentrations would probably end up in that location because of other minerals dissolving (thanks to the acidic environment) or the deposition of silica (neutral pH). Silica precipitates out of h2o at pH vii or 8, and so the layer of strata in Marias Laissez passer and surrounding areas could have been ideal for living organisms. Scientists are yet examining the data from Curiosity'due south finish-off in Marias Pass in hopes of determining how the silica got there. The results might alter the way we imagine an ancient Martian environment.