For more than a decade, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars, analyzing the surface of Gale Crater, where a lake once existed in the early days of Mars. Recent study of both new and old Curiosity images has revealed signs that, long after the lake itself dried up, enough underground water remained in the former lakebed to form the semiprecious gemstone opal.
An opal gemstone found on Mars evokes classic science fiction images of grizzled Martian prospectors searching for mother lodes and fending off claim jumpers. While people may one day wear jewelry from Mars, the current excitement isn’t about bling; as Space.com reports, it could be a sign of a substance on Mars that’s even more precious than opal gemstones: water.
The first hints of opal gemstones on Mars, according to Metal Tech News, were detected as early as 2008 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but these early detections from space gave no hints of the concentration level of “opal-like minerals” that might be found on Mars.
Source: https://now.northropgrumman.com
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