“This shows that you need the water there in order to form these materials,” said Dr. Anthony Feldman. “But it needs to be cold, near-freezing mean annual temperature conditions in order to preserve the amorphous material in the soils.”
What was ancient Mars like? Was it warmer and wetter than it is today or cold and icy like present day Mars? This is what a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environment hopes to address as a team of researchers comprised of NASA scientists and academics investigated whether past climates on Mars mirrored today’s climate or were much warmer and had liquid water. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the climate history of Mars and whether it had the necessary conditions to support life as we know it.
For the study, the researchers analyzed X-ray data of soil material, which the researchers refer to as “X-ray amorphous material”, obtained from NASA’s Curiosity rover in Gale Crater on Mars and compared it to similar material at sites on Earth located in Newfoundland, California, and Nevada using the same X-ray methods employed by the Curiosity rover.
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