NASAs Curiosity rover continues to browse for indications that Mars Gale Crater conditions might support microbial life. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Manganese-rich sandstones found by NASAs Curiosity rover show there were as soon as habitable conditions in the Gale Crater on Mars.A research study group utilizing the ChemCam instrument onboard NASAs Curiosity rover found higher-than-usual quantities of manganese in lakebed rocks within Gale Crater on Mars, which shows that the sediments were formed in a river, delta, or near the shoreline of an ancient lake. The results were released on May 1 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.” It is difficult for manganese oxide to form on the surface area of Mars, so we didnt expect to discover it in such high concentrations in a shoreline deposit,” stated Patrick Gasda, of Los Alamos National Laboratorys Space Science and Applications group and lead author on the study. “On Earth, these kinds of deposits take place all the time due to the fact that of the high oxygen in our atmosphere produced by photosynthetic life, and from microorganisms that help catalyze those manganese oxidation reactions.Martian Oxidation Mysteries” On Mars, we do not have evidence for life, and the system to produce oxygen in Marss ancient environment is unclear, so how the manganese oxide was formed and concentrated here is really perplexing. These findings indicate bigger processes occurring in the Martian environment or surface water and shows that more work needs to be done to comprehend oxidation on Mars,” Gasda added.ChemCam, which was developed at Los Alamos and CNES (the French area agency), uses a laser to form a plasma on the surface area of a rock, and collects that light in order to quantify elemental structure in rocks.Sedimentary InsightsThe sedimentary rocks checked out by the rover are a mix of sands, silts, and muds. The sandy rocks are more porous, and groundwater can more easily go through sands compared to the muds that make up the majority of the lakebed rocks in the Gale Crater. The research group looked at how manganese could have been enriched in these sands– for example, by percolation of groundwater through the sands on the coast of a lake or mouth of a delta– and what oxidant could be responsible for the rainfall of manganese in the rocks.On Earth, manganese ends up being enriched since of oxygen in the atmosphere, and this procedure is often sped up by the existence of microbes. Microorganisms in the world can use the numerous oxidation states of manganese as energy for metabolic process; if life was present on ancient Mars, the increased quantities of manganese in these rocks along the lake coast would have been a practical energy source for life.Mars and Earth: A Comparative View” The Gale lake environment, as revealed by these ancient rocks, provides us a window into a habitable environment that looks remarkably similar to places on Earth today,” said Nina Lanza, principal private investigator for the ChemCam instrument. “Manganese minerals are common in the shallow, oxic waters found on lake shores on Earth, and its impressive to find such identifiable features on ancient Mars.” Reference: “Manganese-Rich Sandstones as an Indicator of Ancient Oxic Lake Water Conditions in Gale Crater, Mars” by P. J. Gasda, N. L. Lanza, P.-Y. Meslin, S. N. Lamm, A. Cousin, R. Anderson, O. Forni, E. Swanner, J. LHaridon, J. Frydenvang, N. Thomas, S. Gwizd, N. Stein, W. W. Fischer, J. Hurowitz, D. Sumner, F. Rivera-Hernández, L. Crossey, A. Ollila, A. Essunfeld, H. E. Newsom, B. Clark, R. C. Wiens, O. Gasnault, S. M. Clegg, S. Maurice, D. Delapp and A. Reyes-Newell, 1 May 2024, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.DOI: 10.1029/ 2023JE007923Funding: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory