Is Mars Like Earth? NASA Rover Finds Substantial Amounts of Manganese on the Red Planet's Gale Crater

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It appears that ancient Mars could have been quite similar to Earth.

Examining the Gale Crater

With the help of NASA Curiosity rover's ChemCam instrument, researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Space Science and the Applications Group were able to come across an odd discovery on the Gale Crater's lakebed rocks. The crater was likely a part of a dry lake and is thought to be roughly 3.5 to 3.8 billion years in age.

The researchers were able to detect substantial amounts of manganese. This chemical element is crucial for human health and can be commonly found in the shallow waters of the lake shores on Earth. Findings were noted in the "Manganese-Rich Sandstones as an Indicator of Ancient Oxic Lake Water Conditions in Gale Crater, Mars" study.

The ChemCam instrument used in the study works by making use of a laser in order to make plasma on samples of rock. It then gathers light, where it can determine its elemental composition.

Nina Lanza, the ChemCam instrument's principal investigator, explains that the environment of the Gale lake offers a window into a habitat setting that looks surprisingly similar to certain areas across Earth. The investigator adds that it is quite remarkable to find such features over ancient Mars.

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Manganese on Martian Surface

The presence of manganese on the Red Planet suggests that it formed in a delta, river, or close to an ancient lake's shores. It is also an addition to the growing evidence that the Red Planet could be capable of fostering life.

Patrick Gasda, who is from the Los Alamos group and who is the study's lead author, explains that it is hard for manganese oxide to form on the Martian surface. Because of this, they did not expect to discover such substantial amounts in the deposit by the shore.

The author adds that across Earth, such deposits occur all the time due to the high atmospheric oxygen that photosynthetic life produces and from the microbes that aid in catalyzing the reactions of manganese oxidation.

The rock subjects of study were different from muds, sands, and silts, which usually have higher porosity. This enables groundwater to move through significantly easily. Hence, it was not clear how the manganese developed.

On Earth, manganese develops through atmospheric oxygen. It further gets enriched with microbes, which make use of the element as a source of energy. This shows that if life lived on Mars at a certain point in time, the element would have been quite useful.

Gasda explains that, since there is no evidence of life on Mars and since the mechanisms for oxygen production on the ancient atmosphere of Mars remains unclear, the formation and concentration of manganese oxide in the surface is quite puzzling. Gasda adds that the findings point toward greater processes that occur in the surface water or atmosphere of the planet and shows that further work is necessary to understand Martian oxidation.

Overall, the findings suggest that ancient Mars was not very dissimilar to certain places on Earth.