Water may not be needed to form rust on the surface of the Red Planet
Mars approaching the Earth. Photo: Hubble Space Telescope
Data sent from unmanned spacecraft on Mars led scientists to the assumption that the red planet's rust color did not come from the presence and activity of water as is usually assumed, but from a thin stream of small meteorites that fell on the surface. This is according to a study published today.
Scientists investigating the possibility of the existence of primitive life forms on the neighboring planet are interested in knowing whether there is water on Mars and if so, how much.
New Scientist magazine quoted Albert Yin of NASA as saying that data from the 1996-97 Pathfinder mission indicate the presence of meteorites and dust that include iron and magnesium on the surface of Mars. If this is indeed the case, Mars may not have had to be Wet despite everything, writes the magazine in its issue from Wednesday (3/9/03).
Many scientists estimated that the red color came from chemical reactions between the iron in the rocks and the water that was in the ponds and rivers that today are swords.
According to experiments conducted by Yan, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, water is not needed to form rust when the iron is exposed to ultraviolet radiation in a room that contained gases with a composition similar to that present in the atmosphere of Mars and at temperatures as low as sixty degrees Celsius below zero.
Yin also said that the network of dry valleys and channels are proof that water did flow on the surface of Mars, but that water appears to have played only a small role in coloring the surface.
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