Mars Water: Opportunity Rover Finds Gypsum, 'Slam-Dunk' Evidence That Water Flowed On Red Planet (PHOTOS)

NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity has found what scientists believe is the most convincing evidence to date that water may have flowed on the Red Planet.

The rover, which has been crawling along the Martian surface for 90 months, found what appears to be veins of the mineral gypsum, a hydrated calcium sulfate that on Earth is used to make drywall.

(PHOTOS BELOW.)

"This tells a slam-dunk story that water flowed through underground fractures in the rock," Steve Squyres, a planetary scientist at Cornell University and the principal investigator for Opportunity said in a NASA statement. "This stuff is a fairly pure chemical deposit that formed in place right where we see it. That can't be said for other gypsum seen on Mars or for other water-related minerals Opportunity has found. It's not uncommon on Earth, but on Mars, it's the kind of thing that makes geologists jump out of their chairs."

According to NASA, the rover found several similar veins on the rim of the Endeavour crater, but scientists have homed in on a 16 to 20 inch-long strip about as wide as a thumb that they've nicknamed "homestake."

The Opportunity has traveled 20 miles since it arrived on Mars in 2004, but this is the first time it has observed a mineral deposit like this.

"This is the single most powerful piece of evidence that water once flowed on Mars that has been discovered," Squyres said, according to Wired. "There's no ambiguity about this."

Squyres spoke to reporters at the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday.

This isn't the first mineral evidence that water may have flowed on Mars, but Squires told the BBC that this gypsum deposit may indicate a less-acidic water supportive of microbial life.

"The other waters ... were probably very acidic - pH of five, four, three. Gypsum doesn't require that, and so this may hint at a kinder, gentler chemistry of the water for life," Squyres told BBC News.

The solar-powered rover is currently preparing for its fifth winter, exploring areas around the crater where it will be exposed to sunlight.

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, reached opposite sides of Mars in 2004, but NASA lost contact with Spirit in 2010. In August, Opportunity finished a nearly three-year, 13-mile trek to reach the Endeavour crater.

In November, NASA's Curiosity, a $2.5 billion, nuclear-powered rover the size of a car, launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The Mars Science Laboratory, as it's called, is currently on a 354 million-mile trek to the red planet and should arrive in August of 2012.

Comments

[LMPE]

01:07 AM on 12/12/2011

Oh damn. I was hoping that they found somewhere to dump the 1%.

[Larry Wadosky]

04:09 PM on 12/11/2011

This is utter foolishness and not true. In outer space their is no oxygen whatsoever and water cannot exist.

[darlenebonny]

11:52 AM on 12/11/2011

I guess we could make drywall on Mars. Gypsum is there, but wait. Don't you need water too? No more water, damn the bad luck.

[JShankel]

05:02 PM on 12/11/2011

Should be plenty of water left in the underground aquifers.

[erdkz2389]

02:08 AM on 12/11/2011

Science is brilliant. :)

[romika3]

03:32 PM on 12/10/2011

Maybe, just maybe we did come from Mars!!!!!! Is called secession on a planetary scale.

[LMPE]

01:08 AM on 12/12/2011

Then it's time to reverse the trend: make the Alaskan Independence Party move to the Red Planet!

[Deborah Silver Goodman]

12:09 PM on 12/10/2011

I understand that humankind have always had a fascination with unknown space. So do I. But whats the big deal that water MAY have ONCE flowed on MARS? So what?Water once flowed in many places.It does that. Why Mars? Why the expense? Can someone write an intelligent article addressing these questions which seem to be exempt from every article I have read on this subject. They come from a position as if they are looking to build a Costco on Mars. And quite frankly, who has the time and money to go there for a six pack of Cheerios that serves as an end table when covered with a towel?

[paulbikes]

06:41 PM on 12/10/2011

you'd be well served to read the case for mars by robert zubrin if you need real answers to your questions. it's not terrible long or dense and explains why we should be doing what we're doing and how it's completely reasonable to expect human colonization of mars in the coming centuries.

in a nutshell, and this all assumes faster and cheaper spacecraft in the future (something that's completely expected), there are precious metals on mars that we need for electronics and other things, they can grow food and collect water and fuel for vehicles there. the other aha moment was that it takes a fraction of the energy to reach the asteroid belt from mars as from earth, mars is much closer with one third the gravity opposing take off. the asteroid belt presents to humankind virtually endless mineral and metal resources, even water. someday it will be practical and necessary to do all of those things, and we're laying the groundwork now.

[authorized-user]

11:37 AM on 12/10/2011

leave mars alone

[Linda Stare]

07:24 AM on 12/10/2011

Which is it? The headline says that it's a "slam-dunk" that water flowed on Mars, then the story says that water MAY have flowed there. Sensationalist journalism that's not so sensational. And even if there WAS water on Mars, there's no evidence of water being there now. The planet is too rich in perchlorate, a strong oxidant that destroys organic matter on the surface and "carbon-based life would be difficult at the [Martian] soil surface." They are not telling us anything that we already learned from the Viking I Orbiter that landed on Mars back in the Donna Summer disco days of July 1976. There's no life on Mars and they keep making these satellite missions there and wasting billions of dollars of our hard-earned tax dollars. And what a stupid time to be wasting money when our economy is like a stale old Mars candy bar with pupating caterpillars crawling around in it. The Bush administration which inherited a surplus from the Clinton administration went and pi$$ed it all away then engaged in a phony war with Iraq, taking out trillions of dollars worth of loans from China, Japan, and elsewhere so that Bush and his crony Cheney could defraud the American people of billions of dollars in their Haliburton scheme.

[Linda Stare]

07:24 AM on 12/10/2011

So now we're really in deep chit, with a deficit of $14 trillion, and all the government has to say for itself is "let's just pretend to send another rocket up to Mars with Bubba's toys and computer graphics, get a few Aussie officials in on this, and divert the attention away from what we owe to China and Japan, and keep everybody in the Hanukkah and Christmas spirit while we figure out what our next attempt should be in distracting the American people" while defrauding them even more in taxes. Meanwhile, "just recirculate old information from the 1976 and 1978 Mars missions, and just CHANGE the dates." Then "we're home free again in scamming the American taxpayer suck-ahs."" Considering what the information is that they are reporting to us from "Mars" today: Are they really even ON Mars, or is this some phony theatrical property in Australia's Red Desert because that terrain shown sure looks like the area around Coober Pedy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_1

[Ronald Pardue]

06:23 AM on 12/10/2011

i watched a debate about the value of nasa and its financing by goverment. one of the ladies on the panel but it quite simply, if we don't do it who will. there is not enough money to be made exploring space.

[Ronald Pardue]

06:15 AM on 12/10/2011

if we ever landed on mars it would be poluted, just like earth is poluted.

[spinnerator]

07:55 PM on 12/09/2011

Excellent, when humanity gets around to colonizing Mars there will be drywall readily available!

[jburner09]

06:22 PM on 12/09/2011

NICE

[deucejuice]

12:50 PM on 12/09/2011

I thought we already knew water existed on mars. We need to train

[ColleenHarper]

07:25 PM on 12/09/2011

There has been absolute evidence at the pole of solid water ice.

This is an occurrence of water that:

Flowed

Had the basic pH balance to be more friendly to life as we know it.

[jsarets]

12:10 PM on 12/09/2011

Curiosity is now over 35 million kilometers from Earth, traveling 117,855 km per hour:

[jsarets]

12:11 PM on 12/09/2011

JPL has a tracking application here:

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

[jsarets]

12:27 PM on 12/09/2011

And here's the spectacular photo of the Phoenix Lander descending under its parachute toward a successful landing as captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008:

http://www.uahirise.org/images/2008/details/cut/PSP_008579_9020_cut.jpg

NASA will attempt to capture a similar photo from Low Mars Orbit as Curiosity descends under its SkyCrane lander next August. It will be difficult to beat that shot of Phoenix. With all the complexity of landing on Mars, it's quite remarkable to have had that live action photo op work out so well.

[Blade1966]

07:05 PM on 12/09/2011

Wow, Cool!
Thanks for posting that pic...