Water on Mars and Earth

Traces of Water Flow on Mars taken with the camera lens belongs Mastcam Curiosity on 14 September 2012 and released by NASA on 27 September 2012

Water on Mars and Earth come from the same source, a meteorite that landed on the planet in the early days of its formation.

Scientists analyze the composition of two rare Martian rocks landed on Earth as meteorites. The analysis shows that the water in the red planet comes from the same celestial bodies.

These results contrast with the view that the water on Earth and Mars come from comets. Water comes from chondrite meteorites that have minerals that can be integrated with the planet landed.

"The meteorite has a fluid basalt, basalt liquids are different from the results of the volcano eruption in Hawaii," said John Jones, a researcher at the Johnson Space Center, National Aeronautics and Space NASA, in Houston.

Meteorites analyzed a pure sample has elements volatile in the Martian environment. Meteorites also represent two different sources of water on Mars.

One of the meteorite came from Mars mantle, with the quantity of water in the region together with the hydrogen on Earth. Meanwhile, another meteorite enriched with elements contained in the superficial layer and the atmosphere of Mars.

Meteorite that originated from the mantle suggests that the inner dry Mars. Other meteorites suggests that Mars was once a very wet surface at a time.

"There are several competing theories to explain the diversity in the composition of Martian meteorites. Until this study, there is no direct evidence that primitive lavas have material from the surface of Mars," said Tomohiro Usui, leader of the study, as quoted by Space, Tuesday (20/11/2012 ).