Skip to main content

Could Mars’ now-barren Gale Crater lake have once supported life?

A view from the base of Mars’ Mount Sharp taken by the Curiosity rover. The rock layers in the foreground dip toward the base of the mountain, indicating ancient water flow. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Gale Crater, the dried up lake bed on Mars on which the Curiosity rover landed, could once have supported life according to scientists.

Using data from Curiosity and working alongside NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and sedimentology and stratigraphy teams, Christopher House, professor of geosciences and director of the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium, was tasked with determining if life could ever have existed in the now barren Gale Crater.

Recommended Videos

Curiosity detected lots of mudstone with fine layers in the locale, suggesting there was once water there. “Gale Crater appears to have been a lake environment,” House confirmed in a statement. “The water would have persisted for a million years or more.”

Eventually, the lake became filled with sediment and turned into stone. But just because there was no longer a lake, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t still water present near the surface. “The whole system, including the groundwater that ran through it, lasted much longer, perhaps even a billion or more years,” House explained. “There are fractures filled with sulfate, which indicates that water ran through these rocks much later, after the planet was no longer forming lakes.”

The team are particularly interested in the presence of sulfur gases, as these are given off by sulfate and sulfide minerals like pyrite. Sulfur is an essential element for life, and pyrite forms in sediment in the presence of organic matter. So detecting pyrite could indicate that the area once supported life.

The chemical makeup of the crater is studied by the SAM researchers who use an instrument which heats up rock samples, then measure the molecules given off using a mass spectrometer.

“It’s been fun to be involved in the daily operations, decisions like where to take a measurement, or where to drive, or whether we should prioritize a particular measurement over a different measurement given the limited amount of time on the surface,” House said. “Each day is limited by the power that the rover has and how much power the rover will need. It has been a great learning experience for how missions operate and a great opportunity to collaborate with scientists from around the world.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Thursday’s special space event turns Empire State Building red
thursdays special space event turns empire state building red

The top of the Empire State Building turned red on Tuesday night to mark the imminent arrival of NASA’s Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars.

The New York City landmark, which, rather fittingly, features a rocket-like appearance, tweeted an image of its red top with the comment: “Together with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we’re celebrating the upcoming landing of Perseverance on Mars with lights in all red tonight!”

Read more
Hundreds of travelers now have Mars stamps in their passports. Here’s why
mars stamps passport uae image00003

Until Elon Musk gets his act together and, to paraphrase Total Recall, gets our collective ass to Mars, it’s unlikely that you’ll be picking up any official Mars stamps in your passport. A rare exception to that rule took place this week. Passengers arriving in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), received a special limited-edition stamp in “martian ink,” extracted from the same kind of volcanic basalt rocks that lend Mars its recognizable rusty color.

This stamp was to celebrate the arrival of the UAE Mars Mission at the red planet on February 9. The spacecraft, called Hope, was launched in July 2020 on a Japanese H-IIA rocket, and has spent the subsequent seven months on its ways to Mars. This week, it finally reached Martian orbit. Hope is the UAE’s first interplanetary mission, the result of decades of work. It will be used to take a complete picture of the atmosphere on Mars.

Read more
Check out this interactive simulator for upcoming Mars rover landing
nasas awesome simulator shows upcoming mars rover landing perseverance simulation

NASA’s Perseverance rover is less than three weeks away from touching down on Mars, as it nears the end of an almost 300-million-mile journey that started in July 2020.

To give space fans the chance to learn more about the final moments of the rover’s epic trip, NASA has released this awesome interactive simulator showing Perseverance's planned entry, descent, and landing stages, expected to take place on February 18.

Read more