Reports were released Thursday announcing that the NASA Mars Rover Curiosity has found water in a sample of soil, which means big news for researchers looking to see if Mars could have once been able to sustain life forms.
"One of the most exciting results from this very first solid sample ingested by Curiosity is the high percentage of water in the soil," said Laurie Leshin, Dean of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in a press release. "About 2 percent of the soil on the surface of Mars is made up of water, which is a great resource, and interesting scientifically."
Water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, and sulfur compounds were found in Curiosity’s first sand sample by the instrument known as the Sample Analysis of Mars (SAM). SAM includes a gas chromotograph, a mass spectrometer, and a tunable laser spectrometer enabling it to identify a wide range of chemical compounds and determine the ratios of different isotopes of key elements.
The sample consisted of dust, dirt, and finely grained soil from a sandy patch on Mars that NASA researchers call “Rocknest.” The sample was fed into SAM and was heated to 835 degrees Celsius to reveal its makeup.
"We now know there should be abundant, easily accessible water on Mars," said Leshin. "When we send people, they could scoop up the soil anywhere on the surface, heat it just a bit, and obtain water."
"This work not only demonstrates that SAM is working beautifully on Mars, but also shows how SAM fits into Curiosity's powerful and comprehensive suite of scientific instruments," said Paul Mahaffy, principal investigator for SAM at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "By combining analyses of water and other volatiles from SAM with mineralogical, chemical, and geological data from Curiosity's other instruments, we have the most comprehensive information ever obtained on martian surface fines. These data greatly advance our understanding of surface processes and the action of water on Mars."
Understanding the content of a sand sample from Mars will help researchers understand the makeup of the entire planet, since Mars has a global layer of surface soil that has been mixed and distributed by frequent dust storms.
[Source: Press Release]