Red Mars, Black Mars
EmailWhy is Mars such a rusty red? For decades, scientists have assumed the answer was as simple as rust on Earth. The Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, established that the planet once was probably warm and wet, with standing pools of brackish water, and scientists believed the soil literally became rusty, with iron oxide forming from iron in the soil and oxygen in the water — not far different from the process that ruins a lawn chair if you leave it out too often.
Or maybe not — at least according to Jonathan Merrison of Aarhus University in Denmark, who made a presentation at the European Planetary Science Conference.
"Mars should really look blackish, between its white polar caps, because most of the rocks at mid-latitudes are basalt," said Merrison in a release. Basalt, the kind of rock produced by volcanoes and other sources of earthly heat, is almost always dark. For illustration, they offer the Hubble telescope image above. The globe on the left is real; the one on the right is doctored.
So why isn't Mars black? Merrison and his team did a little experiment. They filled flasks with sand (earthly but not terribly different from Martian soil analyzed by Mars landers), and sealed them so they would stay as dry as — well, as dry as dust.
They put the vials in mechanical tumblers, turning them over ten million times to simulate the kind of erosion that goes on when rock particles are blown around or grind against each other over time.
After several months, Merrison reports, the flasks (see picture) contained reddish dust. No water required. He theorizes that the chemical composition of the dust changed as a result of the constant friction, becoming rich in hematite, which is reddish and a form of iron oxide. He concedes he is not sure why this happened. He's had a paper on this approved in the scientific journal Icarus.
All this may throw a minor wrench into the thinking of other Mars explorers, who've believed that the way to understand the red planet — and perhaps find evidence of life there — was, in a mantra used at NASA, to "follow the water." But how much water was there, asks Merrison, and how important was it?
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THE EXPERIMENT WOULD BE CONCLUSIVE IF IN FACT MARS WERE MADE OF NOTHING BUT THE KIND OF SAND THIS GUY PUT IN THE TUBE…ALTHOUGH I WILL NOT DOUBT THE VERACITY OF THE EXPERIMENT, MY POLITICAL SIDE TELLS ME CERTAIN GROUPS WOULD LIKE TO SMACK DOWN THE IDEA THAT WATER EVER EXISTED ON MARS AND CERTAINLY THE IDEA THAT LIFE EVER EXISTED THERE BECAUSE THEY ARE CONVINCED THAT GOD CREATED LIFE ONLY ON EARTH…WHEN I LOOK AT MARS IT LOOKS TO ME LIKE THERE WAS ONCE A LOT OF WATER THERE FOR THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO EXPLAIN THOSE SHALLOW LAKE BED FORMATIONS YOU SEE ON MARS’ FLAT SIDE(ONE IS MOUNTAINOUS.)BUT THEN AGAIN I STILL BELIEVE THERE ARE LITTLE GREEN MEN UP THERE, SO MY OPINION MAY NOT BE WORTH MUCH.
Posted by: TruthSaves | September 21, 2009, 9:14 am 9:14 am
Is this supposed to add to Obama’s racial cries? Giveme a break! What of Saturns moon Iapetus that is Half Black/White?
Posted by: 1MANA55 | September 21, 2009, 9:37 am 9:37 am
I’ve been observing Mars through telescopes for over 50 years. The process is as follows:
The light of the Sun reflects off Mars, travels through space, often passes through our atmosphere at high enough angles to minimize refraction, hits my telescope’s paraboloidal mirror, which directs the toward a concentration point, the focus, where I use an eyepiece to further enlarge the focused image, again with little chromatic (color) distortion.
What I see is always RED. With my 12 1/2″ (self-made) mirrored scope, I can even see dust storms along the edges of the planet.
When I look in the sky to find Mar’s, the planet is see is RED. And, at 300x magnification, I’m not seeing a highly illuminated object – which is why looking at the moon makes it seem whiter that it’s dark gray surface.
Cosnequently it’s hard for me to think of Mars as mainly black.
Posted by: The_Mick | September 21, 2009, 10:50 am 10:50 am
1MANA55, give me a break.
Posted by: Chris | September 21, 2009, 11:00 am 11:00 am
TruthSaves, my guess is that this is meant to call into question the volume of water on Mars and not the idea that there ever was (or currently is) water. This is especially the case given that the Merrison acknowledged the existence of the Martian polar ice caps. Do you accuse everyone who has evidence for a view that differs from yours of doctoring that evidence?
Posted by: sdust | September 21, 2009, 11:14 am 11:14 am
So why was the stuff in the dry flask from black sand red?
Posted by: Jim | September 21, 2009, 11:16 am 11:16 am
Interesting but a terrible experiment – EVEN A 4th GRADER COULD DESIGN A BETTER, MORE CONCLUSIVE EXPERIMENT THAN THIS! Besides, its obliviously red…. even the hubble space telescope shows it as red and since that takes Earth’s atmosphere out of the picture as far as affecting the color of the imagine and Mar has basically no atmosphere…. Who cares anyway? There is ICE on the planet; therefore, staticially speaking, assuming that there was once liquid H20 on the surface (however long ago that may have been) is not that bad a of theory.
Posted by: Nathan | September 21, 2009, 11:58 am 11:58 am
The guy isn’t disputing the color of mars (mars rover anyone? =)). The guy isn’t disputing that water exists on Mars (polar ice caps anyone?). If you read the article again, the common NASA understanding of how Mars got it’s color cites liquid water/iron reactions as the cause. This guy claims that basalt-rich sand can become red by mechanical abrasive erosion alone. Mars dust storms are enormous and you can infer that billions of years of dust storms might have created the red color if what the guy claims ends up being true.
Posted by: Weekend | September 21, 2009, 1:18 pm 1:18 pm
Mars is really turquoise! You are all wrong!
Posted by: DUMB | September 21, 2009, 3:03 pm 3:03 pm
Mars is red from the great dried ocean of blood left from it’s last World War.
Posted by: Decendant | September 21, 2009, 3:03 pm 3:03 pm
So the guy says the surface is made of hematite? Look up hematite. It’s iron oxide i.e. rust. So what’s the news?
Posted by: RJ | September 21, 2009, 3:56 pm 3:56 pm
Water on Mars?
God I hope so, because the way things are going, we’re gonna need it.
In the manner we are destroying our planet, won’t be long before our [once] beautiful Earth will be dust too.
Wonder what colour our planet will be from far off in space? Ain’t gonna be blue for sure!!
Posted by: Les | September 21, 2009, 9:11 pm 9:11 pm
The red color is just a pigment of your imagination.
Posted by: andyr | September 23, 2009, 8:53 am 8:53 am
I like the blood theory that Decadent put fourth.
As for the actual science, I’ve never really seen basalt turn red on Earth. And we get quite alot of weathering and abrasion. While it may be true in the lab setting, I’m not sure of any place on earth that has red basalt. If perhaps Ned or anyone else knows of a place, I’d love to read or hear about i. It may take some furthur investigation.
Posted by: Lawrence | September 23, 2009, 8:59 am 8:59 am
Ok, so this is it.
Posted by: surfer | September 29, 2009, 11:11 am 11:11 am