On June 1st 2017, NASA announced that its Curiosity Rover had determined that Mars was once habitable and that the Gale crater landing site was at one time an ancient lake. Researchers at NASA believe that that lake existed 3.5 billion years ago and that it was warm and may have been the home of some form of microbial life. They say that habitable conditions for life may have been present for a period of 700 million years.
The findings which were published in the journal Science, are the result of an analysis of the stratification of the rocks found in Curiosity's Gale crater landing site. The discovery of thick layers of rock which contained iron rich hematite interlaced with thin layers of rock that contained iron rich magnetite bore evidence of a chemical boundary between deep water and shallow water that once filled the ancient lake.
NASA scientists further theorize that UV light combined with atmospheric oxygen created an oxidizing environment which caused some of the sulfur in rocks near the shore to become acidic. This would have given rise to a lower ph near the shore while the deeper less oxygenated water would have had a ph that was closer to neutral. This mix of conditions coupled with a warm temperate climate may have given rise to life that could survive in low oxygen environments.
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