3D of a trough in the Nili Fossae region of Mars shows a type of minerals called phyllosilicates (in magenta and blue hues) on the slopes of mesas and along canyon walls. The abundance of phyllosilicates shows that water played a role in changing the minerals of a variety of terrains in the planet's early history.
Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/University of Arizona/Brown University
ASHLAND: Rocks in the Nili Fossae region of Mars are similar to the earliest evidence of life on Earth – the ‘stromatolites’ of Western Australia – scientists said.
“We have found a location on Mars that is very similar to an ancient part of the Earth that is known to have been inhabited,” said Adrian Brown of the SETI Institute in California.
The Nili Fossae is a fracture on the western edge of the Isidis impact basin, where there is evidence of methane plumes and carbonates – which can be formed when minerals generated by life are buried.
Similar to ‘stromatolites’
In a paper published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Brown and his colleagues found evidence that points to hydrothermal processes, similar to those that occurred in the Pilbara region of Western Australia billions of years ago.
“I have studied the Pilbara region of Western Australia which has rocks that are 3.5 billion years old and those rocks have wavy forms called 'stromatolites' which indicate life was present at that time. This is some of the best, earliest evidence for life on Earth,” Brown said.
The researchers considered the potential of the Archean volcanics in the East Pilbara region of Western Australia and compared it to the discoveries they made in the Nili Fossae on Mars.
Nili Fossae habitable 3.9 billion years ago
“They indicate that biomarkers or evidence of living organisms, if produced at Nili [Fossae], could have been preserved, as they have been in the North Pole Dome region of the Pilbara,” said Brown, in a statement.
Using an instrument called the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter (MRO) the team located a region on Mars where rocks of similar chemistry and mineralogy to the Pilbara rocks have been found.
The finding suggested that this location on Mars, which dates back to 3.9 billion years ago, was habitable, according to Brown.
”Did Martian microbes come to the party?”
“The question that remains now is - we know Mars was habitable, but was it ‘inhabited’ by life? The conditions were right, but did life take advantage of them?
“To borrow a metaphor, ‘The table was set, but did Martian microbes come to the party?’” Brown said.
“Finding evidence for the circulation of warm water is not the same as evidence for life … I do, however, think that this strengthens the reasons for visiting this site with future landers,” said Michael Manga, a geologist at UC, Berkeley.
“It's important to note that these measurements are not evidence that life did exist on Mars, but rather, that conditions in some locations might have been more favorable for life than we had previously known,” said Taylor Perron, a geologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, who was not an author on the paper.
“A site with a warm, wet, pH-neutral past would be one of the first places to look for evidence of ancient biological activity,” Perron said.
Mars
I must admit that to have any living creatures in one form or another is hihly inprobbebol becouse you need anormal temp plus admosfhere to made any living thing over there. The temp on mars is about 250 belowe zero. and it is all bulldust no garden off Eden.
Mars
Interesting spelling :P Remember, they're talking millions of years ago. And at this time, the Sun was in its earlier stages and more than likely a lot cooler.