Analyses of Rover Data Suggest a Drier Mars
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Two new studies are challenging the notion that the desolate Martian plains once brimmed with salty pools of water that could have supported some form of life.
The studies, published in the current issue of the journal Nature, argue that layered rock outcrops probed by NASA’s Opportunity rover appear to have formed from volcanic ash that reacted with small traces of acidic water and sulfur dioxide gas, said geochemist Thomas McCollom of the University of Colorado at Boulder. That would suggest a far more violent and dry history of the planet. Scientists operating the rovers interpreted the layered rock as a sign of ancient water.
