Red Rocks on Mars Aren't Just Rust
Scientists have a new explanation for what makes the Red Planet so red. Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark claim that Mars' red dust could have formed without the water that current hypotheses hold once covered the planet. But when Merrison and his team mixed sand with a mineral called magnetite, found in Martian basalt, they found that mechanical stimulation alone produced a fine red dust. "Subsequent analysis of the flask material and dust has shown that the magnetite was transformed into the red mineral hematite, through a completely mechanical process without the presence of water at any stage of this process," said Merrison, who presented the work yesterday at the European Planetary Science Congress in Germany. Image: Scientists say Mars should look black like the planet on the right, but may have turned red through a mechanical grinding process.
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