Abstract
The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit investigated plains at Gusev crater, where sedimentary rocks are present. The Spirit rover’s Athena morphological investigation shows microstructures organized in intertwined filaments of microspherules: a texture we have also found on samples of terrestrial stromatolites and other microbialites. We performed a quantitative image analysis to compare 45 microbialites samplings with 50 rover’s ones (approximately 25,000/20,000 microstructures). Contours were extracted and morphometric indexes obtained: geometric and algorithmic complexities, entropy, tortuosity, minimum and maximum diameters. Terrestrial and Martian textures resulted multifractals, while terrestrial abiogenic minerals showed a simple fractal structure. Mean values and confidence intervals from the Martian images overlapped perfectly with those from terrestrial samples. The probability of this occurring by chance was less than 1/28, p<0.004. Our work show the presumptive evidence of microbialites in the Martian outcroppings explored by “Spirit”, confirming our previous results concerning the Martian outcroppings explored by Opportunity at Meridiani Planum: unicellular life was widespread on the ancient Mars.
Highlights
Rover Spirit touched down the volcanic plains of Gusev Crater on 4 January 2004, for almost ten years it has runned on the Martian surface
Samples This study undertakes a systematic analysis of black and white Microscopic Images (MI) obtained by Athena (Figure 1), a camera mounted on the NASA Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) “Spirit”, selecting all the images that presented microspherules and filaments of microspherules (V.R.)
In the images photographed by Spirit as well from the images obtained from terrestrial microbialites a continuum pattern of microspherules and intertwined filaments of microspherules, dimensions of about 0.1 mm–0.3 mm, are present
Summary
Rover Spirit touched down the volcanic plains of Gusev Crater on 4 January 2004, for almost ten years it has runned on the Martian surface. The Rover reached the inner basin of Columbia Hills, the images showed here layered sequences, containing sulfate and other soluble elements, due to ancient large process of aqueous alteration [1,2,3]. At Home Plate, where are the most evident geologic feature investigated in the Inner Basin, these layered sequences appeared formed by erosion of basaltic rocks and pyroclastic rocks, deposited as alluvial fans and/or as eolian sand sheets [4,5,6,7]. The wind and weathering processes eroded most of that deposit, carrying away much of the evidence for the ancient lake: an environment where to search for life could be interesting
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