The Earth-like continent may have existed on Mars

Scientists believe that Mars once looked like Earth in ancient times, when the Curiosity probe detected rock on the red planet very similar to the ancient continental crust like Earth.

Ancient Mars may have had a continent like the Earth

According to Space, the exploration ship of the US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) discovered similar silica- rich rocks on Earth when it landed on Mars in August 2012.

Scientists believe that Mars once had an ocean that covered one fifth of the planet's surface.(Photo: NASA.)

"Mars was once thought to be a basalt-covered world, so this discovery was a big surprise , " Violaine Sautter, a planetary science expert who led research and work at the History Museum. Nature in Paris, France said.

Sautter and her colleagues studied data from 22 rocks on ancient terrain near the Gale crater . The crater is 154 km wide and was formed 3.6 billion years before a meteorite crashed into Mars.

Previously, scientists thought that Earth was the only planet divided into continents and oceans. The continents of the globe are made up of a thick silica shell, while the sea floor is made up of poor silica basalt crust. Satellite satellites from the orbit of Mars show that the red planetary crust is made mainly of basalt.

The image of the Curiosity probe shows the rocks mixed with small quartz crystals and silica.(Photo: NASA.)

Twenty-two types of stone used for research are bright and contrast with dark basalt. Sautter and his colleagues also discovered the isolation of silica-rich rocks, silica rocks that are remnants of the ancient crust on Mars. The history of Mars can be explored more in the future to find similarities with the Earth and the difference between the two Mars hemispheres. The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience on July 13