Scientists have found clues hinting at hot water activity on Mars billions of years ago. The discovery was made by NASA’s Perseverance rover in the region it landed on the red planet - the Jezero crater. The presence of crystallized quartz and hydrated silica in the rocks suggests that hydrothermal activity previously existed on the planet. If this is true, then it created a perfect ground to help microbes thrive.

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Researchers from Grenoble Alpes University, CNRS, Sorbonne Université and other French institutions conducted the study. The results were published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Perseverance collected rock samples from the Jezero Crater, which were found to be rich in silica. These rocks filled with opaline silica (opal), chalcedony and quartz were picked up from three locations -  the edge of the ancient delta inside Jezero crater, along the riverbed that connects to the delta and on the edge of the crater rim. 

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Pure silica rock, quartz in Martian rocks

A total of 6 such rocks were studied, some of them being pure silica. This is the first time that quartz has been confirmed to be present on Mars, raising hopes that the red planet harboured life at some point. Scientists said that these minerals are born because of hydrothermal activity, thus proving that hot water flowed on Mars at some point in time.

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"Quartz-dominated stones are detected unambiguously for the first time on the Martian surface, and based on grain size and crystallinity are proposed to be of hydrothermal origin," the researchers wrote in the paper.

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" This attests that hydrothermal processes were active in and around Jezero crater, possibly triggered by the Jezero crater-forming impact," they added.

Hot water on Mars

The detection of silica and quartz rocks on Mars, possibly indicating hot flowing water, ups hopes of finding traces of life on the red planet. On Earth, hydrothermal systems, or heated underground water, create conditions suited for the habitability of a wide variety of microscopic life. 

"These silica-rich rocks, in particular opaline silica, are very promising targets for sampling and return to Earth given their high biosignature preservation potential," the paper states.

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In the past, scientists have found signs of flowing rivers on Mars that dried up years back. Rovers have also found sulfur rocks on Mars. Perseverance recently came across a rock with hundreds of millimetre-sized dark grey spheres that resembled tiny eggs. Scientists are trying to figure out how a lone rock came to sport such strange spherules.

Another story just found clues that liquid water may exist beneath Mars’s surface. So, did life really exist on Mars? The search continues.