Why is Mars red? The reason is different from what was thought

The results of a study collected on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications and led by researchers from the American University of Brown and the University of Bern (Switzerland) suggest that the ferrihydrite, rich in water, can be the cause of the reddish color of the dust that Cover Mars.

Ferrihydrite is an iron oxide mineral that is formed in water -rich environments. On Earth, it is usually associated with processes such as the weathering of volcanic rocks and ashes.

Although there were scientists who suspected that the ferriidrite was the reason for the red of Mars, the theory has not been able to advance until now that the researchers have managed to manufacture Martian dust in the laboratory imitating the observation data of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the NASA, Together with the land measurements of the Curiosity, Pathfinder and Opportunity explorers, of the same agency.

The final confirmation will come from the analysis of the Mars samples that the Perseverance is currently collectingtogether with the results of the next missions, such as the Rove Rosalind Franklin of the European Space Agency (ESA in English) and the Mars Sample Return of the NASA and ESA.

More habitable than was thought

The finding would indicate that Mars was, in the past, more humid and potentially more habitable than was believedsince, unlike hematite, which is usually formed in warmer and dry conditions, ferriidrite is formed in cold water.

The researchers believe that Mars could have had an environment capable of hosting liquid water – an essential ingredient for life – and, later, went from a wet environment to a dry one billion years ago.

Throughout billions of years, this oxidized material – the iron oxide – would have broken up powder and the winds have spread it throughout the planet, a process that continues today.

“Mars is still the red planet, but our understanding of why it is red has been transformed. The main involvement is that, since the ferrihydrite could only be formed when there was still water on the surface, Mars oxidized before what we thought, ”says the main author, Adomas Valantinas, a researcher at Brown University, before at the university of Bern.