Mars HAD Life? New Soil Discovery is 1 Sign We’re WRONG About the Red Planet!

CONTENTS: Mars HAD Life? 

New research into Martian soil samples indicates that Mars’ ancient climate may have been as inhospitable to life as one of Earth’s most barren regions: Canada. The study revealed that Mars likely experienced a cold and icy climate resembling the subarctic conditions of Newfoundland in northeastern Canada, close to Greenland.

Published in Communications Earth and Environment, the research involved scientists comparing the mineral composition of soil from various Earth locations to that of Mars’ Gale Crater. This crater is thought to be a dried-up lake that once contained liquid water.

Mars HAD Life? Scientists estimate that Gale Crater formed around 3.7 billion years ago, coinciding with the emergence of life on Earth, following a meteorite impact on Mars’ surface. Groundwater subsequently filled the crater, forming a lake.

“There was obviously water present,” says Anthony Feldman, a soil scientist and geomorphologist at the Desert Research Institute in the US. “But what were the environmental conditions when the water was there?”

He added that while it’s impossible to find an exact Earth counterpart to the Martian surface due to the stark differences between the two planets, examining terrestrial trends can help infer Martian conditions.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale Crater since 2011.

Mars HAD Life? Curiosity discovered that the soil in Gale Crater contains unusual components called “X-ray amorphous materials.” These materials lack the repeating structures characteristic of minerals, which usually produce identifiable “fingerprints” when exposed to X-rays.

“You can think of X-ray amorphous materials like Jello,” explains Anthony Feldman. “It’s a mix of different elements and chemicals that slide past each other.”

The rover’s chemical analysis revealed that these materials are rich in iron and silica but have low levels of aluminum. However, the origins of these materials and their connection to Mars’ environment remain unclear.

To better understand these amorphous materials, researchers searched for Earth soil samples with similar properties to those found in Gale Crater.

Mars HAD Life? Scientists tested soils from three North American sites: The Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, the Klamath Mountains in California, and western Nevada. These locations offered a variety of rainfall, snowfall, and temperature conditions.

The subarctic conditions of Newfoundland yielded materials chemically similar to those in Gale Crater, whereas the warmer climates of California and Nevada did not. “This shows that you need water to form these materials,” Feldman explains. “But it needs to be cold, near-freezing mean annual temperature conditions to preserve the amorphous material in the soils.”

“This study enhances our understanding of Mars’ climate,” Feldman adds. “The findings suggest that the presence of this material in Gale Crater aligns with subarctic conditions, similar to those found in places like Iceland.”

While this does not rule out the possibility of life on ancient Mars, it suggests that the planet may have been too cold to create the same conditions that led to the origins of life on Earth around the same time.