Mars Rock Samples Point to Earth-Like Crust
Mars Rock SampleNASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSA close-up view of one of the target rocks (named 'Clinton') that the researchers analyzed. The light colored rock is very similar to rocks on earth.Earth and Mars are very different in many ways, but there are lots of striking similarities too. We've both got beautiful auroras, naturally-occuring glass, and water (at least snow and ice, in the case of Mars). And now it looks like our neighboring planet might also have an origin story very similar to our own.In a paper published today in Nature Geoscience researchers looked at around 20 of the rock samples analyzed by the Curiosity rover (with a laser!), and found something interesting. Many of the rocks that they analyzed in Gale Crater (where Curiosity is located) were light-colored and had a very similar chemical composition to rocks here on earth.More specifically, they looked like rocks found in the...