The meteorite contains evidence of liquid water on Mars

Photo:Pixabay

During the first studies of the meteorite scientists found that it integrated with liquid water on Mars. They have long wondered when this interaction occurred and recently with the help of an international collaboration of scientists including two from Purdue University's College of Science determined the age of the minerals in the meteorite.

Dating minerals inside meteorites can tell us when liquid water was on or near the surface of Mars in the planet's geological past. As a result it was determined that the minerals inside the Lafayette meteorite were formed 742 million years ago. Scientists believe that the water came from the melting of subsurface ice caused by magnetic activity that still occurs regularly on Mars today.

Ryan Ickert, senior research scientist at Purdue EAPS uses heavy radioactive and stable isotopes to study the time scales of geologic processes. He demonstrated that other isotopic data were problematic and likely affected by other processes.

Thanks to research we know quite a bit about the Lafayette meteorite today. It was ejected from the surface of Mars eleven million years ago by an impact event. He then experienced a bombardment of cosmic ray particles in space which caused the production of certain isotopes in the meteorite. Many meteoroids are produced by impacts on Mars and other planetary bodies but only a handful fall to Earth.

Meteorites are solid time capsules from the planets and celestial bodies of our universe. They contain bits of data that geochronologists can unlock. They are generally denser than terrestrial rocks contain metal and are magnetic. Dating the alteration minerals at Lafayette is a long-standing goal of planetary science because scientists know the alteration occurred in the presence of liquid water on Mars.

Source:ScienceDaily/Editorial