Mars Exploration News  
Green Mineral Indicates Red Planet Is Dry

the ultimate rock garden

Tempe - Oct 24, 2003
The presence of a common green mineral on Mars suggests that the red planet could have been cold and dry since the mineral has been exposed, which may be more than a billion years according to new research appearing in the Oct. 24 edition of Science.

Todd Hoefen, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) geophysicist, led a team of researchers from USGS, Arizona State University and NASA, that found abundant quantities of olivine on Mars. They based their conclusions on data obtained from a Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) carried by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS).

Olivine, a transparent green-colored mineral found in many mafic rocks, is susceptible to chemical weathering and readily alters to other minerals such as iddingsite, goethite, serpentine, chlorite, smectite, maghemite and hematite in the presence of water. Except for trace amounts of hematite, which gives Mars its red color, none of these other weathering products have been found.

The team detected a 30,000 square kilometer area rich in olivine, in the Nili Fossae region of Mars. Nili Fossae has been interpreted as a complex of grabens and fractures related to the formation of the Isidis impact basin, where post-impact faulting exposed the abundant olivine. They have also found smaller deposits of olivine all over the planet, all indicating a surface dominated by volcanic processes.

The fact that so much olivine is exposed at the surface indicates that there has been little to no weathering due to water, thus no liquid water-mineral chemical reactions. The age of the surface is somewhat uncertain but is probably over 3 billion years old.

It took approximately three years for the MGS spacecraft and the TES instrument to gather the data for the analysis, and scientists another year to analyze the results. The MGS spacecraft is healthy and continues to map Mars.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
United States Geological Survey
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Spirit Heading To 'Home Plate'
Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 09, 2006
Last week Spirit completed robotic-arm work on "El Dorado." The rover used all three of its spectrometers plus the microscopic imager for readings over the New Year's weekend.









  • Boeing Selects Leader for Nuclear Space Systems Program
  • Boeing-Led Team to Study Nuclear-Powered Space Systems
  • Boeing To Build Space-borne Power Generator
  • New High-Purity Plutonium Sources Produced At Los Alamos

  • Smart-1 Edging Out Slowly To The Moon
  • SMART-1 Ion Engine Fired Successfully
  • SMART-1 leaves Earth on a long journey to the Moon
  • SMART-1: The First Spacecraft Of The Future

  • New Study Seeks To Minimize Danger To Aviation From Cosmic Radiation
  • Flying Humans: An Interview with David Glover
  • A Change Of Course For NASA Human Space Flight Programs ASAP
  • New Facility Will Help Protect Space Crews From Radiation

  • Pluto Mission May Be Early Victim Of Growing Budget Crisis
  • Pluto Mission May Be Early Victim Of Growing Budget Crisis
  • Atlas V Chosen To Launch New Horizons Mission
  • Pluto Mission May Be Early Victim Of Growing Budget Crisis

  • Thirty Four Orbits Later Galileo Checks Out By Jove
  • Galileo To Taste Jupiter Before Taking Final Plunge
  • UK Scientists Bid Farewell To Gallant Galileo
  • Lecture Brings Galileo's Travels Into Final Focus



  • Evidence For Hydrocarbon Lakes On Titan Found
  • The Slant On Saturn's Rings
  • How To Drop In On Titan
  • Cassini In Fine Shapes As Spacecraft Checkouts Continue

  • Honeywell To Provide Network Support For NASA Space Missions
  • JPL Researchers Unveil Superconductor-based Light Detector
  • Scientists Seize Golden Business Opportunity By Solving 20-Year Old Problem
  • New Software Can Increase Fiber Optics Capacity Four-Fold

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement