Ancient Mars Had Habitable Conditions Curiosity Results Prove

Mars rover Curiosity provided evidence confirming that Mars could have once supported microbial life, NASA scientists announced in a press conference from Washington D.C. on Tuesday.

With this outcome, Curiosity fulfilled its primary mission goal with the very first drill in a rock on the Red Planet. The first powder rock sample ever collected on Mars showed traces of sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon, which are considered the key elements necessary to support life on Earth.

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."

"We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and so supportive of life that if you had been around, you would have been able to drink [the water]," Curiosity project scientist John Grotzinger replied to a question in the streamed conference, requesting to describe their results in one simple sentence.

A lot happened since that time, about 3 billion years ago, to Mars. Especially billion years of space radiation bombardment, which burned away the atmosphere and destroyed and altered many chemical compounds and minerals on the surface.

Thats why it was crucial for the rover to have the capability to drill inside a rock, accessing preserved layers inside. Curiosity used a drill mounted on its robotic arm to make a small hole in a flat rock named "John Klein" in early February. The drill churned up the rock into powder and extracted about a tablespoon of powder material.

The sample was then delivered to two lab instruments on the rover — the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument and the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument — to determine what it's made of.

The drilling site was chosen because it had concretions that indicated the sediment was once water-soaked.

The first scoop showed that the ground underneath Mars' dusty orange-red surface is actually green-gray. Mars looks red because the top layer is mostly made of iron oxide, or iron that rusted after being exposed to oxygen.

NASA's $2.5-billion rover landed in Mars' Gale Crater in August 2012. Scientists plan to work with Curiosity in the Yellowknife Bay area where it is now for many more weeks before beginning a long drive to Gale Crater's central mound, Mount Sharp. Investigating the stack of layers exposed on Mount Sharp, where clay minerals and sulfate minerals have been identified from orbit, may add information about the duration and diversity of habitable conditions.