Mars' red color explained by surprising new research

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An artist’s illustration of Mars.
(Image credit: SCIEPRO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY through Getty Images)

We might have been incorrect about how Mars got its particular red color, a brand-new research study exposes.

The Red Planet owes its ruddy skin tone to rusted iron minerals, distributed throughout billions of years by winds, throughout the world’s dust. Previous spacecraft observations of Martian dust led researchers to think that this rust emerged in dry conditions, after the world’s water had actually vanished.

Now, brand-new research study, released Feb. 25 in the journal Nature Communicationscontests this view. Rather, Mars’ red color is much better matched by ferrihydrite– an iron oxide which contains water– therefore the color should have formed back when the now-arid world was a cool ocean world, the research study authors recommend. Simply put, Mars might be red today due to the fact that it was blue in the past.

“Our findings have opened up new questions about the Martian past,” Author Adomas Valantinasa planetary researcher at Brown University, informed Live Science. “We still don’t know the original source location of the ferrihydrite before it was distributed globally through dust storms, the exact chemical composition of Mars’ atmosphere when the ferrihydrite formed, or the precise timing of Mars’ oxidation.”

Mars’ intense color has actually mesmerized astronomers because antiquity. The Romans called the world after their god of war since of its blood-stained color, and the ancient Egyptians provided it the name “her desher,” or “the red one,” according to NASA

Related: ‘At least 150,000 lots’ of water frost found atop Mars’ highest volcanoes

In contemporary times, spacecraft sent out to the Red Planet discovered no water within Martian dust. Researchers have actually associated the world’s soreness to an iron oxide called hematite, which forms under dry conditions. A scarcity of in-depth lab experiments left this conclusion fairly unsupported.

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To much better examine the origins of Mars’ color, the scientists behind the brand-new research study took information from 3 spacecraft orbiting Mars– the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express orbiter and Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter– and from NASA’s Curiosity, Pathfinder and Opportunity rovers to piece together an extraordinary view of the world’s mineral structure and dust size.

With this details in hand, the scientists then utilized an innovative mill device to produce sensible reproduction dust with grain sizes approximately one-hundredth the width of a human hair in the laboratory in the world. By examining this dust by means of the exact same approaches as the spacecraft, the researchers found that Martian dust carefully matches signatures for ferrihydrite, which formed when the world was cool and damp.

In spite of responding to one crucial concern, the findings likewise raise others, such as what it might expose about the world’s previous windows of habitability and the possibility that life as soon as existed on its surface area.

“Ferrihydrite requires liquid water and forms rapidly under cold, wet, oxidizing conditions, typically at circumneutral pH. Hematite, in contrast, can form in warm and dry conditions through slow chemical weathering processes,” Valantinas stated. “The finding suggests Mars experienced periods of aqueous alteration — cold, wet conditions with active chemistry — before transitioning to its current desert state. This provides new constraints on the timeline of Mars’s habitability and indicates potential environments where microbial life could have thrived.”

“We eagerly await the results from upcoming missions like ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover and the NASA-ESA Mars sample return, which will allow us to probe deeper into what makes Mars red,” Colin Wilsonjob researcher for ESA’s TGO and Mars Express, stated in a declaration

“Some of the samples already collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover and awaiting return to Earth include dust,” Wilson included. “Once we get these precious samples into the lab, we’ll be able to measure exactly how much ferrihydrite the dust contains, and what this means for our understanding of the history of water — and the possibility for life — on Mars.”

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Ben Turner is a U.K. based personnel author at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, to name a few subjects like tech and environment modification. He finished from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a reporter. When he’s not composing, Ben delights in checking out literature, playing the guitar and awkward himself with chess.