Mars Rover Curiosity Discovers Silica That May Reveal Red Planet Had Lots of Water

The Mars rover Curiosity has made a new finding that may tell researchers a bit more about water that flowed on the Red Planet. The rover has discovered much higher concentrations of silica at some sites than at ones it investigated when it first landed, which may hint at the presence of water.

"The high silica was a surprise," said Jens Frydenvang, one of the researchers, in a news release. "While we're still working with multiple hypotheses on how the silica got so enriched, these hypotheses all require considerable water activity, and on Earth high silica deposits are often associate with environments that provide excellent support for microbial life. Because of this, the science team agreed to make a rare backtrack to investigate it more."

The first discovery occurred when Curiosity approached the region known as "Marias Pass" near Mount Sharp, where a lower geological unit contacts an overlying one. The rover's laser-firing instrument, ChemCam, checked rock composition and found a lot of silica in some targets.

The researchers then did further analysis of the region, adding further information about silica clues.

Currently, the researchers are working on two main hypotheses to explain the recent findings on Mount Sharp; both of these require water. Water that is acidic would carry other ingredients away and leave silica behind. Alkaline or neutral water could bring in dissolved silica that would be deposited from the solution.

"What we're seeing on Mount Sharp is dramatically different from what we saw in the first two years of the mission," said Ashwin Vasavada of JPL in a news release. "There's so much variability within relatively short distances. The silica is one indicator of how the chemistry changed. It's such a multifaceted and curious discovery, we're going to take a while figuring it out."

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