'Halos' on Mars Suggest Conditions for Life Lasted Longer Than Thought

[Judi Lynn]

By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | May 30, 2017 05:54pm ET

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Mars was capable of supporting life for much longer in the ancient past than researchers had thought, a new study suggests.

Shortly after touching down inside the Red Planet's 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater in August 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover found evidence that the area had harbored a potentially habitable lake-and-stream system in the ancient past.

Now, Curiosity has spotted "halos" of silica-rich bedrock surrounding fractures near Gale's floor. These halos were found overlying ancient lake sediments with a high silica content, mission scientists said. [The Search for Life on Mars: Photo Timeline]

"This tells us that the silica found in halos in younger rocks close by was likely remobilized from the old sedimentary rocks by water flowing through the fractures," study lead author Jens Frydenvang, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said in a statement.

More:
http://www.space.com/37025-mars-lake-halos-conditions-for-life.html