The new research from the European Space Agency is providing new insights that question what people previously believed about Mars’ red colour.
The study published in the journal Nature Communications has changed the scientific explanation for why it appears red.
Adomas Valantinas, a post-doctoral fellow at Brown University, said in a statement, noting, “Mars is still the Red Planet. It’s just that our understanding of why Mars is red has been transformed,” as per The Independent.
The red dust on Mars is mainly rust (iron oxide), which form similarly to how rust develops on Earth.
Over millions of years, dust storms have spread this material across the planet.
Earlier studies did not find any water within the iron oxide, which has been a point of discussion.
As per the reports, scientists, using spacecraft data and new lab methods, now believe Mars’ red colour comes from iron oxides that contain water.
This mineral, called ferrihydrite, only forms when cool water is present.
“We were trying to create a replica martian dust in the laboratory using different types of iron oxide. We found that ferrihydrite mixed with basalt, a volcanic rock, best fits the minerals seen by spacecraft at Mars,” said Valantinas.
Newly collected samples will help scientists gain more valuable information in the future.
