Priceless Map of Mars: Massive 'mineral deposits' revealed on the Red Planet!

The new map of Mars - showing huge deposits of hydrated minerals scattered across the Red Planet - is changing our perception of the Red Planet's watery past and pointing to potential landing sites. capabilities for future human missions.

Never before have scientists been so amazed at the history of water on the Red Planet. As it turns out, water on Mars has an ever more "priceless" past for Earth scientists!

Mars is closer than ever

Mars is a dry planet today, but evidence suggests it once had water flowing all over its surface. Watery minerals can be found in rocks that have been chemically altered by water in the past, and are often turned into clay and salt.

The new findings suggest that water played a much larger role in the geological formation of Mars throughout its history.

NASA and ESA contributed to a whole new human understanding by creating a global map of the aquifers on Mars.

This priceless map has been carefully crafted over the past decade using data from the Mars Express Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activité ( OMEGA) of the European Space Agency (ESA), and NASA's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars called CRISM.

Specifically, the map shows the location and abundance of water minerals. They come from rocks that have been chemically altered by the action of water in the past, and are often converted into clay and salt.

Data from ESA's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter were used to create the first detailed global map of Mars' hydrated mineral deposits. (Source: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM))

Data from NASA and ESA's two Mars missions were used to create the first detailed global map of Mars' hydrated mineral deposits. These minerals are primarily clay and salt, and can be used to tell the history of water in different regions of the Red Planet. For the most part, clay was created on Mars during its wet early period, while many of the salts still seen today were created as the water gradually dried up.

The various landing sites and areas of interest are shown on the map (see photo below):

• Mawrth Vallis is an ancient clay aqueduct.
• Oxia Planum is a clay-rich area. These clays include the iron and magnesium rich minerals of smectite and vermiculite, and local kaolin. Oxia Planum has been chosen as the landing site for ESA's Rosalind Franklin rover.
• Hydrated silica has also been mapped on an ancient delta in Oxia.
• Meridiani Planum lies between the Martian equator and was the landing site of NASA's Opportunity rover in 2004.
• Valles Marineris is one of the largest canyons in the Solar System.
• Gale Crater and Jezero Crater are the landing sites for NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance probes in 2012 and 2020, respectively.

The clays shown on the map include iron and magnesium phyllosilicates, zeolites and aluminosilicate clays. The salts shown are carbonate salts made of carbon and oxygen. (Image source: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM))

On Earth, clay is created when water interacts with rock, with different conditions producing different types of clay. For example, clay minerals such as smectite and vermiculite form when relatively small amounts of water interact with rocks. Therefore, they retain most of the same chemical elements as the original volcanic rock.

In the case of smectite and vermiculite, those elements are iron and magnesium. Rocks can be more altered when the water content is relatively high. Dissolved elements tend to be washed away leaving aluminum-rich clays such as kaolin (a white, friable, refractory clay).

The big surprise to the researchers was the prevalence of these minerals. Ten years ago, planetary scientists knew there were only about 1,000 rocky outcrops on Mars. However, the new water map has turned the tide, revealing hundreds of thousands of such areas in the oldest regions of the Red Planet.

Planetary scientist John Carter from the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Paris (France), and lead author of the paper published in the journal Icarus, said: 'The new water map changes our understanding of history of the Red Planet. Having this map, we have no doubt that water plays a huge role in the formation of geology across this planet."

Jezero Crater and its surroundings on Mars display a rich array of minerals that have been altered by the Red Planet's past water. These minerals are mainly clay and carbonate salts. Close-up data obtained from global maps of minerals produced by ESA's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in 2020, is currently exploring the Jezero crater and its surroundings. (Source: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM))

The key issue now is whether the water is persistent or limited to shorter, more intense bursts. While there is no definitive answer yet, the new results certainly give scientists a more powerful tool to pursue answers.

Professor John Carter said: 'I think we have simplified Mars as a whole. He explains that planetary scientists tend to think that only certain types of clay minerals on Mars were made during its wet period, then as the water gradually dried up, salt was created. across the planet.

This new map shows that it is more complicated than previously thought. Although many salts on Mars may have formed later than clay, the map shows many exceptions where there is an intimate mix of salt and clay. There are even some salts that are said to be older than some clays.

'The evolution from many water to no water is not as obvious as we think, water does not stop overnight. We see that the geological context is so diverse that no simple process or timeline can explain the evolution of mineralogy on Mars. That is the first result of our study. The second is that if you exclude life processes on Earth, Mars exhibits a mineralogy diversity in Earth-like geologic environments'.

In other words, the closer we look, the more complicated Mars' past becomes.

"Effective right hand" of NASA and ESA

The OMEGA and CRISM tools are best suited for this survey. Their data sets are highly complementary, operate over the same wavelength range, and are sensitive to the same minerals.

CRISM provides a unique high-resolution spectral image of the surface (down to 15m/pixel) for highly localized patches of Mars and makes it best suited for mapping regions. small, such as the landing points of autonomous rovers. For example, the map shows the Jezero impact crater where NASA's 2020 Perseverance rover is currently exploring, showing a rich variety of hydrated minerals.

As part of a new global map of minerals on Mars, the Oxia Planum area was found to be rich in clay. The Oxia Planum site has been selected as the landing site for the ESA's Rosalind Franklin. (Image source: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA and HRSC) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM)).

OMEGA, on the other hand, provides global coverage of Mars at a higher spectral resolution and with a better signal-to-noise ratio. This makes it more suitable for global and regional mapping, and for differentiating between different variable minerals.

The results are presented in a pair of scientific papers, written by Professors John Carter, Lucie Riu and colleagues. Lucie Riu was working at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Sagamihara, Japan, when part of the work was done but is now ESA Research Fellow at ESA's European Astronomical Center (ESAC) in Madrid (Spain).

With the basic findings in hand, Lucie Riu decided to take the next step and quantify the amount of mineral on hand. "If we knew where and in what proportion each mineral was present, it would give us a better idea of ​​how those minerals might have been formed," she said.

This work also provides mission planners with some excellent candidates for potential future Mars landing sites.

First of all, water molecules still exist in water minerals. Together with known locations of buried water ice, this provides potential areas for man-made water extraction using local resources, which is essential for the construction of human bases. on Mars. Salt and clay are commonly used building materials on Earth.

Second, even before humans went to Mars, the minerals in the water provided excellent places to do science. As part of this mineral mapping campaign, the clay-rich site in Oxia Planum was discovered. These ancient clays include the iron and magnesium rich minerals of smectite and vermiculite. Not only could they help unlock the Red Planet's past climate, but they are also the perfect location to investigate whether there was life on Mars. As a result, Oxia Planum was proposed and ultimately selected as the landing site for ESA's Rosalind Franklin rover.

Lucie Riu said: 'This is something I'm interested in and I think this kind of mapping work will help open up further studies. The more we learn about this planet, the more fascinating it becomes."