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Marvel gets almost of the press these days every bit the preeminent Martian rover. But both Spirit and Opportunity did a great deal of scientific exploration earlier their newer cousin arrived on the Red Planet. Back in 2008, Spirit gathered information on some distinctive rocks most Home Plate in Gusev Crater. Analysis showed that the rocks in question were made from silica.

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The rocks in question

Close upwards, the rocks have a distinctive cauliflower-like shape, which is where the nickname came from. There's nil unusual near finding rocks with a high silica (SiO2) content; they're mutual in volcanic environments, particularly hot springs. Equally UniverseToday discusses, yous tin observe these silica deposits all across World, including some impressive specimens at Yellowstone National Park.

Here's where things get interesting. At that place'south cypher unusual nearly silica rich deposits, but on Earth, those deposits are habitation to microbial life. On Earth, microbes shape the silica deposits into distinctive shapes that at to the lowest degree superficially resemble those seen to a higher place.

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The research newspaper, past Steven Ruff and Jack Farmer of Arizona State University, notes that the formations found on Mars are visually similar to those plant in the Atacama Desert here on Earth. That'south considered meaning for ii reasons. First, because the Atacama is the driest places on our planet with temperatures that alternate betwixt freezing and boiling and a higher level of UV than most other locations. Every bit a result, it's often used as an environmental proxy for conditions on Mars. Second, because the Atacama is teeming with microbial life, which could tell the states something most how finer life survived on the Red Planet.

Until we can actually examine the structures in question, there's no hard proof that the unusual stone germination was produced by biological organisms. On Globe, we know that living creatures are responsible for the formations, merely that doesn't rule out non-biological processes. Mars, after all, is an entirely dissimilar planet. One could even debate that modernistic day scientists seeing biology in such phenomena are making a mistake like to astronomers similar Percival Lowell, who believed the Martian features showtime glimpsed by Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877 actually were canals.

To exist off-white, modern-twenty-four hours scientists are oft more tempered in their comments than in some of the remarks their counterparts fabricated a century and more than ago. These new discoveries are couched in caution — structures could exist explained past biological processes, but are past no means certain to have been produced by such. Even so, discovering that aboriginal microbes did inhabit Mars could exist proof of a contempo Smashing Filter hypothesis — specifically that life may be arable and arise frequently, but that information technology only manages to institute itself and begin modifying a planet to remain hospitable to life in a handful of cases.