Water is often what scientists focus on in searching for manifestations of life anywhere. If you want to discover if there was previous life somewhere, look for water, as it is one of the signs of life, and without it, no organism would be able to continue alive.
It is what scientists followed in searches for signs of extraterrestrial life, especially with regard to life on Mars, and to uncover the secrets of previous life on the Red Planet before the water stopped flowing.
In order to prove the theory of the existence of previous life on the surface of Mars, with no current flow of water, scientists had to search for geological signs of water that were there before, and they found signs in the rocks and soil of the Red Planet. Where some minerals and structures are formed only in places where rocks and water interact, which proves the theory of the existence of previous life on Mars, according to Live Science.
A new study published in the journal Geophysical Research: Planets, using data from NASA’s Curiosity rover, finds that the mysterious halos of light from rocks in fissures in Mars’ crater may be made of water-rich opals.
Also, the bottom of an ancient, dried-up lake on Mars may have been filled with garnet gemstones, indicating the prevalence of water and possible microbial life that lived on Mars even once.
The researchers discovered fractures in the surface of Mars, some of which are surrounded by halos of light-colored rocks, which the researchers found after studying and analyzing them to be rich in opal, a mineral that is produced as a result of the interaction of silica-rich rocks with water.
The researchers also concluded that these halos are not isolated or confined to a specific place, but rather extended, so that these halos were also found on the cracked surface of the Mars crater “Gal Crater”, which is the bottom of an old dry lake with a width of 154 km that Curiosity has explored since it began its mission in 2012.
The researchers pointed out that this evidence that supports the presence of potential habitable subterranean conditions on Mars adds to the mountain of evidence that water was widespread on Mars.