Could Life Have Existed on Mars? A Meteorite Found in 1931 Offers New Clues!

The Lafayette meteorite that eventually crashed into Earth after an asteroid hit Mars 11 million years ago could provide crucial evidence of liquid water on Mars. 

What a Martian Meteorite Reveals About Water on Mars

The Lafayette asteroid was eventually rediscovered at Purdue University back in 1931. Early analysis of the meteorite showed that it had interacted with liquid water while on Mars. Scientists have been speculating about when that interaction actually took place, but a recent collaborative study determined the age of the minerals that formed when liquid water existed on Mars.

The team of scientists led by Marissa Tremblay has published its findings in Geochemical Perspective Letters. Tremblay is a professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at Purdue University and using noble gases she studies the physical and chemical processes that shape the planets. She has now claimed that the meteorite contains minerals formed through interaction with liquid water while on the Red Planet.

“Dating these minerals can therefore tell us when there was liquid water at or near the surface of Mars in the planet’s geologic past,” she explained. “We dated these minerals in the Martian meteorite Lafayette and found that they formed 742 million years ago. We do not think there was abundant liquid water on the surface of Mars at this time. Instead, we think the water came from the melting of nearby subsurface ice called permafrost, and that the permafrost melting was caused by magmatic activity that still occurs periodically on Mars to the present day.”

Could this evidence bring us closer to understanding life on Mars?

The team of scientists carefully showed that the chronometer had not been affected by the meteorite’s journey after being ejected from Mars. The presence of liquid water was dated to 742 million years ago.

“The age could have been affected by the impact that ejected the Lafayette Meteorite from Mars, the heating Lafayette experienced during the 11 million years it was floating out in space, or the heating Lafayette experienced when it fell to Earth and burned up a little bit in Earth’s atmosphere,” she says. “But we were able to demonstrate that none of these things affected the age of aqueous alteration in Lafayette.”

Meteorites like this serve as really useful time capsules and with the right analysis can show the makeup of the planets and give more clues about their origin.