While attention has been focused on the Mars rover Curiosity, NASA’s other active Mars rover, Opportunity, has quietly been going about its business and may have stumbled across an intriguing new geologic puzzle. Opportunity has begun examining ancient clays on Mars that would have formed in the presence of water with neutral acidity, a condition favorable for life as we know it.
“This is our first glimpse ever at an ancient Mars where conditions would be suitable for life,” said astronomer Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the lead scientist for Opportunity’s mission, here at the American Geophysical Union conference on December 4, 2012