Meteorites, not water, turned Mars red?
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Water may not have been necessary to create rust on the red planet.
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LONDON (Reuters) -- Data from an unmanned Mars probe suggests the red planet's rusty color might have come not from water as widely believed but from tiny meteorites raining on its surface, a science magazine said.
Scientists exploring the possibility of some form of life existing on Earth's planetary neighbor are eager to establish whether water exists or has existed on Mars and, if so, in what quantities.
The New Scientist magazine quoted Albert Yen of NASA as saying information from the 1996-97 Pathfinder mission suggested the hue came from meteorites and dust containing iron and magnesium.
"If that's the case, Mars might not have been so wet after all," the magazine said Wednesday.
Many scientists have supposed the red color came from chemical reactions between iron in rocks and now dried-up surface rivers and pools.
Tests by Yen, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, had shown no water was needed to create rust when iron was exposed to ultraviolet light in a chamber containing gases similar to Mars's atmosphere and at temperatures as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius, according to the magazine.
It quoted Yen as saying the planet's networks of dry valleys and channels were good evidence that water had indeed flowed on Mars's surface, but it said water seemed to have played only a small part in weathering the surface.
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