NEW YORK: Want another piece of evidence to put in the truther “life on Mars” vault? Traces of opal have been found on a Martian meteorite — more specifically, the infamous Nakhla meteorite – which may indicate the existence of microbial life on Mars and which areas to search for them.
A team of astronomers from the University of Glasgow, the Natural History Museum in London, the Center for Microscopy and Spectroscopy in Germany, and the Scottish Universities Environtmental Research Center detailed their findings in Meteoritrics & Planetary Science, where they state that remnants of opal-A (also known as a “fire opal,” a variation of the semi-precious stone with a red and orange cast) were detected with the help of a scanning electron microscope.
Nakhla’s gem vestiges are theorized to have been caused by an admixture of H2O and silica (the dioxide form of silicon) native to the meteorite. This lends itself to the idea that not only did hot springs exist at one point on Mars, which is key to how opals are formed, but that microbial life, which thrives in the environment that hot springs create, could have also been present.
“[We] know that on Earth opals like these are often formed in and around hot springs,” wrote Martin Lee, a professor at the Environmental Research Center and the lead scientist on the project. “Microbial life thrives in these conditions, and opal can trap and preserve these microbes for millions of years. If Martian microbes existed, it’s possible they too may be preserved in opal deposits on the surface of Mars.”
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