The Curiosity Mission began near the bottom of the pit, based on a formation called Aolis Mons, or Mount Sharp, where NASA expected to find geological samples as soon as possible. The idea was to climb Mount Sharp then and collect samples at the growing height from later and later geological periods, the history of the habit and the great drying history of Mars. On the way, carbon, missed by satellites, was finally found.
An incomplete cycle
Tutolo's team focused on four sediment samples, which was drilled after climbing Mount Sharp, one kilometer above. The samples were examined with the chemistry and mineral tools of the rover, which uses X-ray diffraction to determine their composition. It took out about 5 to 10 percent of the samples of the cedarite. “It was an iron carbonate, corresponding to a mineral directly, called calcite, found in sedimentary rocks like limestone. The difference is that it is iron in its quotation site instead of calcium,” Tutolo explained. “We expected that because Mars is very rich in iron – this is why it is a red planet.”
The cirdrite found in samples was also pure, which Tutolo feels that it has been formed through a evaporation process that we see in the lakes evaporated on the earth. This, in turn, was the first evidence that we have found of the ancient Martian carbon cycle. “Now we have evidence that confirms the model,” Tutolo claims. Carbon from the atmosphere was being seized in rocks on Mars as it is on Earth. The problem was that unlike the Earth, it could not get out of these rocks.
“On Earth, whenever ocean plates are divided into mental, all limestone that were formed before cooking, and carbon dioxide return to the atmosphere via volcanoes,” says Tutollo. On the other hand, Mars has never done skilled plate tectonics. A large part of carbon that got stuck in martian rocks, stopped in the rocks forever, diluted the atmosphere. Although it is likely that the red planet had its own carbon cycle, it was an incomplete that eventually turned it into a lifeless desert.