Curiosity hits 'pay dirt': Mars was habitable, evidence suggests

The Mars rover Curiosity analyzed the inside of a rock it drilled and found that the sample was likely formed in standing water 'so benign' you likely could have drunk it, researchers say.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / March 12, 2013

This image released by NASA shows the Curiosity rover holding a scoop of powdered rock on Mars. The rover recently drilled into a Martian rock for the first time and transferred a pinch of powder to its instruments to analyze the chemical makeup.

NASA/AP

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The verdict is in: Mars's Gale Crater was habitable in its distant past, perhaps during the same period in which microbial life was establishing itself on Earth between 3 billion and 4 billion years ago.

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That is the conclusion scientists have reached after NASA's Mars rover Curiosity analyzed the first sample ever culled from deep in a rock on another planet.?Curiosity used a first-of-its-kind drill to extract the sample.

Now, only seven months into its mission ? a period set aside primarily for testing the rover's various instruments ? Curiosity has already given researchers the answer to the broad, basic question they set out to answer: Did Mars ever host environments suitable for life?

The issue of habitability is "in the bag," said John Grotzinger, a planetary geologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and the mission's lead scientist, during a press briefing announcing the results on Tuesday.

The minerals in the tiny, gray, ground-rock sample exposed by Curiosity's drill speak of abundant standing water, conditions neither too acidic or too alkaline for life, and the minerals that would have provided a ready energy source for microbes, if any had been there.

The patch of Gale Crater Curiosity is exploring would have been "so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it," he said.

The drill is crucial to Curiosity's mission because Mars's oxidizing atmosphere changes the chemical qualities of the exterior of rocks. To see the fuller story of the planet's geologic history, scientists need to drill past the surface.

With the first test of the rover's drill system, it turns out, the research team "hit pay dirt," added David Blake, a scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. He's the lead scientist for CheMin, one of two mini-labs inside Curiosity's chassis that analyze the mineral and chemical compositions of rock and soil samples.

Even before Curiosity arrived, evidence from orbit suggested that the floor of Gale Crater would be an excellent choice to test the proposition of habitability. The crater sits on the border between the Martian highlands and lowlands, forming a catch basin for any water flowing downhill.

From orbit, the landing site centered on what looked like the downhill edge of an alluvial fan ? eroded sediment that spread out, fan-like, from summits along the crater rim.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/Jx4hOMxia58/Curiosity-hits-pay-dirt-Mars-was-habitable-evidence-suggests

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