Mars Science Results Fleshed Out, but the Spirit Is Weak

The first detailed science results from the Mars Exploration Rover “Spirit” have been published in eleven papers in the Aug. 6 issue of Science.¹  Highlights include: the Gusev Crater shows no sign of lake sedimentary deposits, but rather is composed of volcanic ash with some windblown dust.  Lacustrine (lakebed) deposits, if any, must be buried deep underneath the current volcanic sediments.  Rocks are olivine-rich basalts which would have degraded in the presence of standing water (see 01/22/2004), and they show no signs have having been transported by water through Ma’adim Vallis, the valley that looked from orbit like a flood channel leading into the crater.  The high concentration of sulfates indicates that sulfuric acid prevented the formation of carbonates and influenced the climate of Mars.
    The technical details are fascinating as usual, but lacking is any enthusiasm over the possibility of finding life.  Any past water would have been “as acidic as gastric juices,” says Richard Kerr: “The emerging picture is of a salt-laden, often corroded planet that had standing water early in its history.  Volcanic emanations made that water acidic enough to leach salt from the rock and lay it down in thick beds, and water beneath the surface seems to have altered rock as well.  Most of the planet is now covered by weathering products of yellow-brown dust or rock rinds.”  Spirit’s age is showing as it struggles over the hill (Columbia Hills, that is).  Is the spirit of the investigators also waning from excess acid?

¹Overview by Richard A. Kerr: “Rainbow of Martian Minerals Paints Picture of Degradation,” Science, Vol 305, Issue 5685, 770-771, 6 August 2004, [DOI: 10.1126/science.305.5685.770].

Scientists must be disappointed after high hopes that Gusev Crater was an ancient lake.  It sure looked like one from orbit, inlet channel and all (see 06/21/2002 headline).  Now, Mars does not sound like a beachfront resort you would want to visit, even if you could stand the smell.  Kerr was surprisingly silent about the usual high-priority subject of looking for signs of life (see 06/23/2003 headline).  In fact, none of the 11 papers even discussed the habitability of the planet, let alone the presence of present or past life.  The descriptions in these papers do not portray Mars as a suitable place to cook primordial soup.  How could life have emerged from a salty acid bath?  It’s astronomically improbable under ideal conditions (see online book), but salt is a poison to hopeful molecules.  No less than the journal Astrobiology said that even a weak salt solution prevents membranes from forming and RNA from polymerizing (see 09/17/2002 headline).
    Surely if any hope for finding life could be found in the data, the Spirit in these papers would be effervescent and the media would make every Opportunity to trumpet the news.  Such somber silence; such a depressing title, “Rainbow of Martian Minerals Paints Picture of Degradation,” hints of despair.  Though it is too early to say for sure, it seems the deadly truth about Mars is starting to sink in.