In a press conference today at NASA Headquarters, the Mars rover team described evidence that the Meridiani Planum region of Mars was once wet and perhaps “habitable.” The presence of ancient liquid water on Mars has frequently been inferred from large-scale landforms that appear to show water erosion, and ice is an important part of the martian polar caps. However, this is the first time chemical evidence for water has been found in the equatorial regions of the planet, which are the most accessible to spacecraft investigation.

The chemical evidence for past water was found in an outcropping of rock accessible to the Opportunity Mars rover. Its chemical analysis as well as distinctive morphological features on the rock surface (see news release below) indicate the presence of abundant sulfate and of salt deposits in the past. These are a signature of dissolved minerals. It is not possible to distinguish whether the rocks themselves are sedimentary, having been deposited in a former pond or shallow sea, or if they are the result of aqueous alteration of volcanic (igneous) rock by groundwater.

This discovery heightens interest in possible evidence for past life on Mars, even of fossils of microbes that might exist in these deposits as they do in sedimentary rock deposited on Earth’s seafloors. The area probed by Opportunity is the first outcropping of bedrock that has been investigated up close on Mars. All the other regions sampled by landers are mantled in fine-grained soil. The presence of an impact crater provided us an opportunity to peer below the surface soil. It now seems certain that both rovers will give priority to exploring craters near the landing sites. Even if several weeks of overland travel are required to reach other craters, it will be worthwhile if rock outcrops can be located and studied. There are suitable large craters within one kilometer of both of the landing sites.

In answer to questions about the significance of this finding, PI Steve Squyres and NASA science officials Ed Weiler and Jim Garvin emphasized that future missions will undoubtedly carry astrobiology payloads for more detailed analysis carried out in situ as well as a return of martian samples for study in terrestrial laboratories, perhaps within the next decade. The NASA strategy for Mars science is to look for hints of past or present life by “following the water”.

Below is the NASA / JPL press release describing the new results.

David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist

NASA / JPLNEWSRELEASE: 2004-074 (March 2, 2004) Opportunity Rover Finds Strong Evidence Meridiani Planum was Wet

Scientists have concluded the part of Mars that NASA’s Opportunity rover is exploring was soaking wet in the past.

Evidence the rover found in a rock outcrop led scientists to the conclusion. Clues from the rocks’ composition, such as the presence of sulfates, and the rocks’ physical appearance, such as niches where crystals grew, helped make the case for a watery history.

“Liquid water once flowed through these rocks. It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry,” said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. “We’ve been able to read the tell-tale clues the water left behind, giving us confidence in that conclusion.”

Dr. James Garvin, lead scientist for Mars and lunar exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, said, “NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rover mission specifically to check whether at least one part of Mars ever had a persistently wet environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life. Today we have strong evidence for an exciting answer: Yes.”

Opportunity has more work ahead. It will try to determine whether, besides being exposed to water after they formed, the rocks may have originally been laid down by minerals precipitating out of solution at the bottom of a salty lake or sea.

The first views Opportunity sent of its landing site in Mars’ Meridiani Planum region five weeks ago delighted researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., because of the good fortune to have the spacecraft arrive next to an exposed slice of bedrock on the inner slope of a small crater.

The robotic field geologist has spent most of the past three weeks surveying the whole outcrop, and then turning back for close-up inspection of selected portions. The rover found a very high concentration of sulfur in the outcrop with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which identifies chemical elements in a sample. “The chemical form of this sulfur appears to be in magnesium, iron or other sulfate salts,” said Dr. Benton Clark of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. “Elements that can form chloride or even bromide salts have also been detected.”

At the same location, the rover’s Moessbauer spectrometer, which identifies iron-bearing minerals, detected a hydrated iron sulfate mineral called jarosite. Germany provided both the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and the Moessbauer spectrometer. Opportunity’s miniature thermal emission spectrometer has also provided evidence for sulfates.

On Earth, rocks with as much salt as this Mars rock either have formed in water or, after formation, have been highly altered by long exposures to water. Jarosite may point to the rock’s wet history having been in an acidic lake or an acidic hot springs environment.

The water evidence from the rocks’ physical appearance comes in at least three categories, said Dr. John Grotzinger, sedimentary geologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge: indentations called “vugs,” spherules and crossbedding.

Pictures from the rover’s panoramic camera and microscopic imager reveal the target rock, dubbed “El Capitan,” is thoroughly pocked with indentations about a centimeter (0.4 inch) long and one-fourth or less that wide, with apparently random orientations. This distinctive texture is familiar to geologists as the sites where crystals of salt minerals form within rocks that sit in briny water. When the crystals later disappear, either by erosion or by dissolving in less-salty water, the voids left behind are called vugs, and in this case they conform to the geometry of possible former evaporite minerals.

Round particles the size of BBs are embedded in the outcrop. From shape alone, these spherules might be formed from volcanic eruptions, from lofting of molten droplets by a meteor impact, or from accumulation of minerals coming out of solution inside a porous, water-soaked rock. Opportunity’s observations that the spherules are not concentrated at particular layers in the outcrop weigh against a volcanic or impact origin, but do not completely rule out those origins.

Layers in the rock that lie at an angle to the main layers, a pattern called crossbedding, can result from the action of wind or water. Preliminary views by Opportunity hint the crossbedding bears hallmarks of water action, such as the small scale of the crossbedding and possible concave patterns formed by sinuous crestlines of underwater ridges.

The images obtained to date are not adequate for a definitive answer. So scientists plan to maneuver Opportunity closer to the features for a better look. “We have tantalizing clues, and we’re planning to evaluate this possibility in the near future,” Grotzinger said.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington.