Orbiter spies new Mars site to visit
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
NASA’s orbiting Mars Odyssey probe has spied what appear to be ancient salt deposits in the southern highlands of the planet, giving scientists another place to study whether the environment could have supported primitive life.
The evidence of salt remnants is important because they pinpoint regions where water once flowed.
Scientists said the deposits probably formed 3.5 billion to 3.9 billion years ago, possibly from groundwater that reached the surface and evaporated, leaving behind the mineral deposits.
Since the deposits were scattered around 200 sites in the southern region, it’s unlikely that they are the remains of an ocean, scientists reported in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
