An artist rendering, based on scientific findings, of Gale Crater in Mars during one of its ancient, wet periods. (NASA)

There is no doubt that early Mars had long period of warmer and much wetter climates before its atmosphere thinned too much to retain that liquid H₂0 on the surface.

As we know from the Curiosity mission to Gale Crater and other orbital findings, regions of that warmer and wetter Mars had flowing water and lakes periodically over hundreds of millions of years.  That’s one of the great findings of planetary science of our times.

But before approaching the question of whether that water could have supported life, a lot more needs to be known than that water was present.  We need answers to questions like how acidic or basic that water likely was?  Was it very salty? Did it have mineral and elemental contents that could provide energy to support any potential life?

And most especially, how long did those wet periods last, and the dry periods as well?

In a recent paper for Nature Communications, some more precise answers are put forward based on data collected at Gale Crater and interpreted based on geochemical modeling and Earth-based environmental science.

The water, say geochemist Yasuhito Sekine of the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) in Tokyo and colleagues from the U.S. and Japan, had many important characteristics supportive of life.  It was only mildly salty, it had a near-neutral pH, it contained essential minerals and elements in state of disequilibrium — meaning that they could give and receive the electrons needed to provide life-supporting energy.   The  area was hardly lush — more like the semi-arid regions of Central Asia and Utah’s Great Salt Lake — but it contained water that was plausibly life supporting.

Based on an analysis of the patterns and quantities of salt remains, they estimate the water was present numerous times for between 10,000 to one million years each period.

Were those warm eras long enough for life to emerge, and the dry period short enough for it to survive?

“We don’t have a clear answer,” Sekine said. “But it is now more clear that the key question is which is more important:  the chemistry of the water or the duration of its presence?”

And the way to address the question, he said, is through a mix of planetary science and environmental science.

“This is a first step in the application of environmental chemistry to Mars,” Sekine said.… Read more