United States.- The mixture of a water-bearing iron ore described in the nineteenth century and the fact that they are common rocks on Earth, suggests the existence of a substantial water reservoir on Mars.Peter J. Heaney, Professor of Geosciences at Penn State University and his PhD student, Athena Chen , they obtained a small piece from the original sample, and, surprisingly, five samples that were in Penn State’s own Frederick Augustus Genth collection.
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After several examinations using a wide variety of instruments, including infrared spectroscopy and synchrotron X-ray diffraction, a more sensitive and refined method than that used in the mid-nineteenth century, Chen showed that these minerals were really light in iron and had hydroxyl, a hydrogen and oxygen group: replaced by some of the iron atoms. The hydroxyl of the mineral is stored water. Read more: Father’s Love! Engineer creates an exosketo for his son who can’t walk The researchers recently proposed in the journal Geology “that hydrohematite is common in cases of low-temperature iron oxide on Earth and, by extension, can inventory large amounts of water in seemingly arid planetary environments, such as the surface of Mars.”
“I was trying to see what the natural conditions were to form iron oxides,” Chen said in a statement. “What were the temperatures and pH needed to crystallize these hydrated phases? Could you find a way to synthesize them?” Read more: NASA chooses SpaceX to go to Europa, Jupiter’s natural satellite It found that at temperatures below 150 degrees Celsius, in an aqueous, alkaline environment, hydrohematite can precipitate and form sedimentary layers. “Much of the surface of Mars apparently originated when the surface was wetter and iron oxides precipitated from that water,” Heaney said. “But the existence of hydrohematite on Mars is still speculative,” he said.
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