Mars is known as the Red Planet because its surface is coated in rusty red soil, rock and dust formed of iron oxide. | File
Mars has always captured human imagination due to its markedly red presence in the night sky. Across millennia, it has gone from being god of war and humankind’s favourite place to imagine aliens. Now those who are eager for proof of life on Mars may have a reason to celebrate. Because researchers in Australia have found out oldest evidence that says that there was hot water activity on Mars. Since presence of water is strongly associated with presence of life, there is quite an excitement in the scientific community.
A research by experts at Curtin University in Western Australia has been published in scientific journal Science Advances.
The paper describe the analysis the Australian researchers carried out on a 4.45 billon-year-old zircon grain obtained from the massively famous Martian meteorite NWA7034. The meteorite is also called Black Beauty and was found in the Sahara Desert in the year 2011.
The experts found that the zircon grain had signs of water-rich fluids. This suggests that hot water was indeed present when magmatic activity was present on Mars.
“We used nano-scale geochemistry to detect elemental evidence of hot water on Mars 4.45 billion years ago,” said Aaron Cavosie, a co-author of the study and researcher from Curtin University. He was quoted by Xinhua news agency.
“Hydrothermal systems were essential for the development of life on Earth and our findings suggest Mars also had water, a key ingredient for habitable environments, during the earliest history of crust formation.”
The findings from the research shows that hot water was present on Mars about 4.1 billion years ago.
Researchers from University of Adelaide also took part in the study.
