Mars Rover Curiosity Sees Key Water Indicator.

We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it.

Mars is red because all of the rocks on its surface have become corroded. Its acidic landscape is hostile to life. To find out what conditions were like in the past, Curiosity drilled into the rock. And here’s the borehole, the first on another planet. And inside, in Curiosity’s scoop. We see the rock is bluey-green. It’s confirmation that billions of years ago, conditions were more benign and able to support life.

Under the surface, Curiosity has discovered clay and chemicals that are the ingredients for life. It is now dry and dead, but three billions of years ago, water probably flowed freely here.

You would have seen perhaps a shallow lake with relatively pure water, water that could have supported microbial life. Perhaps small rivers draining into that lake, perhaps large ice deposits out in the distance, volcano erupting, and ash floating through the air. This kind of environment.

With Curiosity’s scientific mission only just begun, many more discoveries are expected, and the best is probably yet to come. Pallab Gosh, BBC News.

Source: bbc.co.uk