On Mars, found potential “life center” – GISMETEO.Novosti

Another proof of the presence of potentially habitable in the past oceans on Mars discovered by American scientists from the Institute for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in Mountain View. This time, a group of planetary scientists led by Janice Bishop of the probe according to the MRO figured impressive deposits of calcium carbonate and clay deposits, which revealed a high content of iron in the region of the Martian crater Huygens. His scientific calculations the researchers reported in the journal JGR:. Planets

Mars. © NASA

Janice Bishop calls his discovery of a “window into the past of the Red Planet.” According to her, these geological findings lead to the conclusion that the climate of Mars, which today is a cold and dry desert, in the past was completely different.

The data obtained by the spectrometer CRISM , on board the probe MRO , it altimeters and onboard cameras allowed planetary scientists to study in detail the geological characteristics of Huygens crater located in the southern tropics, the Red planet. As a result, scientists have identified in this area the presence of calcium carbonate, which is a part of a conventional chalk and who in the world is directly related to the oceans and organic life, as well as iron-rich clay formation is also possible only in the presence of a certain amount of water.

note that planetary institute SETI under the direction of James Ray’s study the geology of Mars for the past five years. It is thanks to them in 2011 managed to get one of the first conclusive evidence for the existence of oceans on Mars in the past. Then in one of the craters on Mars, scientists found carbonate deposits of magnesium, carbon dioxide salts. This discovery was the basis for a new theory of the disappearance of the Martian atmosphere. Scientists have suggested that the atmosphere is not evaporated into space, as stated earlier, and was absorbed by the ancient ocean and was transformed into deposits of sedimentary rocks.

James Ray notes that the fact that a sufficiently large amount of carbonates regularly found in a variety of deep craters on Mars, speaks in favor of the widespread formation of similar geological rocks on the Red planet about 3.8 ?? 3.5 billion years ago. This is also evidence that Mars in the past was very similar to Earth and had not a rarefied atmosphere, and a very thick shell of air.