First time in the history of mankind, researchers have predicted the age of a Martian rock successfully. The experiments are being performed on the Mars surface by a team of scientists led by geochemist Ken Farley of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
The work of these researchers will enable us to understanding the geologic history of Mars and help the scientific search on the Red Planet for evidences of ancient life. NASA scientists had been carefully planning the experiments being performed by Curiosity rover, of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, for over a decade.
The Curiosity rover drilled holes into the mudstone in March, and collected samples of powdered rock from two locations that were about three meters apart. The rock powder was then delivered to the Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) instrument, for various chemical analyses, as well as for geochronology-or rock dating-techniques. The Mars rockdating experiment has been published in the Science Express journal that revealed the age of the mudstone to be around 3.86 to 4.56 billion years old.
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(AW: Pratima Tigga)
