NASA’s Curiosity Rover has gathered more data providing evidence of presence of water in Ancient Mars after a soil sample analysis revealed that it contains two percent of water.
Equipped with highly advanced scientific tools, Curiosity found water traces bound chemically in the Red Planet's dust that covers the whole planet surface. This discovery could provide an explanation to the mystery around the water signals previously intercepted by satellites that are orbiting Mars.
Surface soil in Mar's Gale Crater, which is the same area where Curiosity touched down in 2012, is apparently constitute two main components as based from data gathered by the NASA rover's ChemCam laser-shooter tool. The first is a rough type of soil which has millimeter-wide grains collected from the surrounding rocks; the second is a sample of fine soil which mostly has micrometer-sized grains.
According to the researchers, they cannot pinpoint exactly where the fine soil originated from. It may have formed from many different places or may have originated from one single source then was blown over the surface of the planet through violent dust storms. They also seem out of place if compared with the rocks surrounding it.
According to Caltech geologist and also the project scientist for Curiosity's mission, John Grotzinger, "It's actually kind of exciting because it's water yet again on Mars, but it's in a different material than we had recognized." He further shared that the findings demonstrate that water could be possibly present in various ways.
A different study tried to find water in a sample soil but did not find any because the instrument used required the sample to be in a crystallized state in order to detect water. This was proven by Curiosity's experiment on a small sample cooked in its tiny oven. It found that there was around 1.5 to three percent of water contained in the soil. The team of researchers believes that this liquid content was pulled in from the atmosphere.
The study was published in the Sept. 26 issue of Science.
