Mars and Earth Could Almost Be Twins!

Dublin Scools.net

NASA

NASA recently discovered that there are andesite rocks on Mars’ surface.

            What is the impact of this discovery? It is now known that Mars is a lot more like Earth than what was previously expected.

            Earlier, scientists and geologists expected to identify rocks on Mars as “mafic and ultramafic igneous rocks, volcanic and intrusive” with low amounts of silicon and high amounts of iron and magnesium: essentially, basalts. They believed they would find these types of rocks on Mars because of the composition of Martian meteorites and because of the existing plains and mountains are presumable formed from basaltic volcanism similarly to those formed on Earth.

           

            Using the Pathfinder machine, scientists discovered that there was a much higher content of silicon on these rocks than what they were expecting to find; these rocks are, therefore, classified as andesite.

Earth’s Andesite rock.  [Geology.com]     

There are still no implications relating to this discovery of the observed rocks since their origins are unknown but the results could suggest that the “crust on Mars is similar in composition to continental crust on earth” or that these rocks represent a minimal part of the basaltic plain on Mars.

http://mars.nasa.gov/MPF//science/mineralogy.html

Chemistry Group “A”: Adrian Dopico, Marilyn Machuca, Joseph Martinez