WASHINGTON: In a pioneering feat, researchers have discovered glass deposits on the Red Planet, providing a delicate window into the possibility of past life on the Red Planet.
Using data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the team from Brown University detected deposits of glass within impact craters on Mars formed in the searing heat of a violent impact.
Previous research has shown that ancient biosignatures can be preserved in impact glass.
“Knowing this, we wanted to go look for them on Mars and that is what we did here. Before this paper, no one had been able to definitively detect them on the Martian surface,” said Kevin Cannon, PhD student at Brown University.
Cannon and co-author professor Jack Mustard showed that large glass deposits are present in several ancient yet well-preserved craters scattered across the Martian surface.
These glass deposits are relatively common impact features on Mars and could be targets for future exploration.
To identify minerals and rock types remotely, scientists measure the spectra of light reflected off the planet’s surface. But impact glass does not have a particularly strong spectral signal.
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