LANLCuriosity detected manganese oxide on the surface of the Red PlanetLANL
Sedimentary rocks rich in manganese oxide, identified by one of the devices on the Curiosity rover, suggest that Mars may once have had an oxygen-rich atmosphere and in its early history, it might have been more similar to Earth and more conducive to life than previously thought. The discovery is intriguing because known forms of manganese oxide indicate an abundance of oxygen or microbial life — and neither has ever been detected on the Red Planet. When digested by microorganisms, manganese oxide — which was abundant in Earth’s rocks and oceans around 4 billion years ago, before the first forms of life emerged — leads to an accumulation of oxygen, essential to most living beings. “We did not expect to find manganese oxide in such high concentrations,” said Patrick Gasda of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), USA, in a statement. Gasda’s team believes the rocks may have been left in the region by water from an extinct river slowing down as it entered the Gale Crater, an ancient lakebed 154 kilometers wide; the process would likely have been similar to how manganese oxide-rich rocks ended up on the shores of shallow lakes on Earth. Another possibility is that the manganese oxide was formed from chemical elements such as chlorine and bromine, abundant during the early formation of Mars, which could convert manganese dissolved in water into manganese oxide minerals (LANL and Journal of Geophysical Research Planets, May 1; LiveScience, May 6).
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