NASA Spirit rover finds extra wet discovery on Mars

William Atkins
Tuesday, 22 May 2007 08:47

Science - Space

Microsoft Office 365

Specifically, on the 1,150th Martian day of Spirit’s mission on Mars (which was March 29, 2007), the rover used its miniature thermal emission spectrometer to analyze the mineral composition of the rut. It was positioned away from the sample, which was  located in an area called Gertrude Weise.

With an indication from the instrument of the presence of silica, the rover, on May 8th and 9th, touched the soil with its alpha particle x-ray spectrometer, which is located on the end of its robotic arm. The rut examined was about 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide. The instrument, which is able to chemically analyze the soil, found that the brightly colored soil contained about 90% pure silica.

Previous discoveries of these bright-colored soils turned up samples full of sulfur. However, this sample contained little sulfur, but was full of silica. When the Cornell University principal investigators heard about the discovery, it was reported that they were shocked with the news.

They surmise that the silica within the soil could have occurred due to acid vapors from volcanic action while near water or could have developed from water in a hot spring.

Silica is actually silicon dioxide (SiO2). It occurs on the Earth as the crystalline mineral quartz. However, at the Gertrude Weise site, the silica was non-crystalline—meaning it contained no quartz.

This discovery adds strong evidence that Mars was much wetter in its past than previously thought by scientists here on the Earth.

The home Web page for the Mars Exploration Rovers is: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html.