Sometimes, scientists have to dig, work, and sweat to make scientific discoveries. And sometimes, a robot rolls over a rock that turns out to be a revelation.
That’s what happened when Mars exploration expert Roger Wiens, professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in the College of Science at Purdue University, had NASA’s Perseverance rover fire its laser at some unusually pale rocks on the Martian surface — and discovered that they were composed of unusually high levels of aluminum associated with the mineral kaolinite.
That was interesting in itself, but what made the discovery truly fascinating is that this mineral typically forms only in very warm and wet environments. The finding, published by Wiens and his team in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, suggests that Mars may have been warmer, wetter, and weirder than scientists previously thought.
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