Earth-like-Martian Past Unleashed By NASA's Curiosity Rover

(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th june, 2016) Mars is revealing its secrets! NASA's Mars curiosity rover being a source of discovering loads of secret information is still striving hard to continue turning up the evidences that would unleash all the signs of life existed on the planet's earlier times.

It is suggested recently that the planet contained adequate amount of oxygen in its ancient days as compared to today which is supported by the latest discovery of manganese dioxide grafted in martian rocks.

This strongly supports the idea that the planet was more Earth-like than it is today.The suggestions based on the Martian rocks' spotting leads to an assumption that there might be a time when there was sufficient oxygen on mars same as that on earth.

This is an addition the the past discoveries of ancient water bodies on the planet which mark the existance of life supporting elements on the planet. The scientists will now use these discoveries to further study the atmosphere of Mars.

Manganese oxides were found in mineral veins. This has been placed by the rover in the chronology of old environmental conditions and the higher oxygen growth is a proof of the time when its surface contained ground water.

Briefing about the relation of manganese diaoxide with the presence of oxygen,Nina Lanza, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said, "The only ways on Earth that we know how to make these manganese materials involve atmospheric oxygen or microbes," in an interview published by Science Daily.

"Now we're ascertaining the presence of manganese oxides on Mars, and we're wondering how the heck these could have formed?" Lanza added.The researchers said that formation of manganese material requires liquid water and strong oxidizing agents so it is possible for manganese to be found on mars.

It can be compared to the earth where manganese dioxide is formed only when there is a raised amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, said Lanza."One potent way that oxygen could have become incorporated into the Martian atmosphere is when mars lost its gravitational field, triggering the breakdown of water", Lanza said in an interview with NASA.

"It's thought that at this time in Mars' history, water was much more abundant," Lanza added.But Lanza tol that it still ardous to confirm the occurance of atmospheric oxygen on Mars. But the phenomena of oxygenation of planetery atmospheres might become unambigious to them due to the findings.