Why is Mars red?"There is something of a paradox about Mars," agrees Joshua Bandfield of Arizona State University in Tempe. His team recently showed that the planet has no large deposits of carbonates, which should have formed if giant pools of water had persisted on the surface. Bandfield suggests that liquid water must have occasionally burst out of the ground, carving channels and gullies, but that it quickly froze again in the frigid Martian climate.
by Hazel Muir
New Scientist
4 September 2003Martian soil may contain detrimental substanceNASA's Phoenix spacecraft has detected the presence of a chemically reactive salt in the Martian soil, a finding that if confirmed could make it less friendly to potential life than once believed... preliminary results from a second lab test found perchlorate, a highly oxidizing salt, that would create a harsh environment... On Earth, perchlorate is a natural and manmade contaminant sometimes found in soil and groundwater. It is the main ingredient in solid rocket fuel and can be found in fireworks, pyrotechnics and other explosives... The first test determined the soil was slightly alkaline and contained nutrients such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chloride necessary for living things. The second test found the highly reactive perchlorate.
by Alicia Chang
August 05, 2008Life on Mars? "Missing Mineral" Find Boosts ChancesNew images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show areas fo Mars where magnesium carbonate is exposed in 3.6-billion-year-old bedrock in Mars's Nili Fossae region.
by Victoria Jaggard
National Geographic News
December 19, 2008
Carbonate minerals contain carbon and oxygen and need liquid water to form. Common carbonates on Earth include limestone and chalk.
Previous missions had seen small percentages of carbonates in Martian dust. More recently the Mars Phoenix Lander found the minerals in the planet's arctic soils.
But until now, evidence for the source of these carbonates in Martian bedrock had been elusive, supporting theories that even if Mars once had bodies of water, they were too acidic to support life as we know it.
"Carbonate, like the baking soda in your refrigerator, dissolves quickly when exposed to acid," said study leader and Brown University professor Bethany Ehlmann yesterday at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
"So the fact that ... carbonate is still present means that the waters flowing through [Nili Fossae] must not have been acid" and could therefore have been conducive to life.
Mars Express probes the Red Planet’s most unusual deposits
ESA | November 1, 2007 | MARSIS Science Team
Posted on 11/05/2007 10:26:46 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1921241/posts
Almighty Smash Left Record Crater On Mars
New Scientist | 6-25-2008 | David Shiga
Posted on 06/25/2008 1:29:46 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2036366/posts
Did A Giant Impact Create The Two Faces Of Mars?
New Scientist | 3-15-2007 | David Shiga
Posted on 03/15/2007 2:14:24 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1801508/posts
Red planet’s hue due to meteors, not water
New Scientist | September 4 2003 | Hazel Muir
Posted on 12/21/2006 12:27:00 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1756678/posts
Red Planet’s Ancient Equator Located
Scientific American (online) | April 20, 2005 | Sarah Graham
Posted on 04/24/2005 11:18:25 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1390424/posts
So, where did the water on Mars come from?
The Toronto Star | 3/7/04 | Terence Dickinson
Posted on 03/07/2004 2:21:58 AM PST by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1092484/posts
New Theory: Catastrophe Created Mars’ Moons
space.com | 29 Jul 03 | Leonard David
Posted on 07/29/2003 8:56:47 AM PDT by RightWhale
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/954539/posts
[and, I didn’t check this link]
Giant Impact Basins Trace the Ancient Equator of Mars
Jafar Arkani-Hamed
Earth and planetary sciences, McGill University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
http://www.agu.org/pubs/pip/2004JE002343.pdf