Mars’ distinctive red color comes from the mineral ferrihydrite, which only forms in the presence of cool water, a new study claims.
Ferrihydrite also forms at a lower temperature than other minerals that make up the aptly-named red planet’s surface, like hematite, which had previously been considered the main reason for its rouge hue.
“This suggests that Mars may have had an environment capable of sustaining liquid water before it transitioned from a wet to a dry environment billions of years ago,” NASA said in a news release this week.
NASA partially funded the study.
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Researchers in the study, published in Nature Communications this week, analyzed data from several Mars missions, including several Mars’ rovers, and the findings were compared to lab experiments “where the team tested how light interacts with ferrihydrite particles and other minerals under simulated Martian conditions,” NASA said.
“The fundamental question of why Mars is red has been considered for hundreds if not for thousands of years,” the study’s lead author Adam Valantinas said in a statement.
Valantinas is a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University who began the study as a Ph.D. student at Switzerland’s University of Bern.
He continued, “From our analysis, we believe ferrihydrite is everywhere in the dust and also probably in the rock formations, as well. We’re not the first to consider ferrihydrite as the reason for why Mars is red, but we can now better test this using observational data and novel laboratory methods to essentially make a Martian dust in the lab.”
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Senior author of the study, Jack Mustard, called the study a “door-opening opportunity.”
“It gives us a better chance to apply principles of mineral formation and conditions to tap back in time,” Mustard, a professor at Brown University, said. “What’s even more important, though, is the return of the samples from Mars that are being collected right now by the Perseverance rover. When we get those back, we can actually check and see if this is right.”
The research shows that Mars likely had a cool but wet and potentially habitable climate in its ancient past.
Mars’ atmosphere is too cold and then to support life now, but billions of years ago the planet had an abundance of water, NASA said, which is also evidenced in the ferrihydrite found in its dust.
“These new findings point to a potentially habitable past for Mars and highlight the value of coordinated research between NASA and its international partners when exploring fundamental questions about our solar system and the future of space exploration,” Geronimo Villanueva, Associate Director for Strategic Science of the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and co-author of the study, said.
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Valantinas said what the researchers “want to understand is the ancient Martian climate, the chemical processes on Mars — not only ancient — but also present.”
He continued, “Then there’s the habitability question: Was there ever life? To understand that, you need to understand the conditions that were present during the time of this mineral’s formation. What we know from this study is the evidence points to ferrihydrite forming and for that to happen there must have been conditions where oxygen from air or other sources and water can react with iron. Those conditions were very different from today’s dry, cold environment. As Martian winds spread this dust everywhere, it created the planet’s iconic red appearance.”
