Mars

Ancient Australian Rocks and the Search for Life on Mars

By Keith Cowing
Press Release
astro-ph.EP
July 14, 2020
Filed under
Ancient Australian Rocks and the Search for Life on Mars
Conical Stromatolites from the 3.43 Ga Strelley Pool Chert in Western Australia, Fig 3g of Brown et al., (2004).
astro-ph.EP

We discuss the results of a remote sensing study that has revealed new details about an important rock unit dominated by two minerals that can be associated with volcanism (olivine) and life (carbonate).

The study, which used a new analysis technique on CRISM data, identified a region where no carbonates or clays are present, only large grain size olivine. This discovery shines new light on the formation and history of the olivine-carbonate rock within Jezero crater that will be explored by the Mars 2020 rover.

Adrian J. Brown, Christina E. Viviano, Timothy A. Goudge
Comments: 11 pages, 4 figures
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
DOI: 10.1029/2020EO146438
Cite as: arXiv:2007.06656 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2007.06656v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Adrian Brown
[v1] Mon, 13 Jul 2020 19:50:06 UTC (2,759 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.06656
Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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