Centuries have been spent by miners in search of salt. They have begun their search in thick layers of stone where an ocean once was. So, when the scientists saw the huge amount of salt deposits on the surface of Mars from the satellite images, they wondered if Mars, too, had oceans like that of the Earth. And yet, the salt deposits on the surface remains to be unraveled as they speak so much of the climate in the Red Planet.
A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago draws some light on the Martian salt deposits. They also offer ways to test the water on Mars to find out how they would have looked like.
"The mineral deposits are not in the right places to indicate the ocean that may once survived there, but they date from the earliest era of overspilling lakes and rivers to the cold, desert planet that it is known today," said Edwin Kite, assistant professor at the University of Chicago in the Geophysical Sciences department. He is also a renowned expert in the History of Mars and the climates of the worlds. "These salt deposits might be able to tell us what happened to Mars and how it has dried out."
The salt deposits found on the Martian surface are not the same as the salt deposits found on Earth. Actually, they can be considered as more like Epsom salts, basically made up of two ingredients -- sulfuric acid and magnesium. Once the studies have revealed how these two chemicals have combined, it is easy to derive information about the climate in Mars was like then.
One of the possibilities that the study is looking at is that it may have circulated deep underground. It may have carried with it the magnesium to the surface where it got the chance to react chemically with the sulfuric acid. This also reveals that the planet's surface and atmosphere would have been warm enough to allow the groundwater to flow.
The other option is that maybe the magnesium was simply blown in like dirt. If this is the case, then the climate in Mars then could be as cold as the winds blowing off the coast of Antarctica.
Fortunately, Curiosity, NASA's rover in Mars will be able to test it when it arrives at the salt deposits in the Red Planet by 2020.
"Curiosity comes with a good instrument package. By then, we might be able to get good data," said Mohit Melwani Daswani, co-author of the study.
