Discovery of ancient hot water on Mars: 4.45 billion-year-old zircon grain Martian meteorite NWA7034 reveals

In a groundbreaking discovery, Australian researchers have unveiled the oldest direct evidence of hot water activity on Mars, suggesting that the Red Planet may have once been habitable.

The team, led by Curtin University in Western Australia, analyzed a 4.45 billion-year-old zircon grain from the Martian meteorite NWA7034, known as Black Beauty, which was found in the Sahara Desert in 2011. Their findings, published on Saturday, reveal geochemical fingerprints of water-rich fluids within the zircon, indicating the presence of water during early Martian magmatic activity.

Aaron Cavosie, a co-author from Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, highlighted the significance of the discovery. "Using nano-scale geochemistry, we detected elemental evidence of hot water on Mars 4.45 billion years ago," he explained. "Hydrothermal systems were crucial for the development of life on Earth, and our findings suggest that Mars also had water, a key ingredient for habitable environments, during the earliest history of crust formation."

Despite major meteorite impacts that caused surface upheaval on Mars, the research indicates that water existed on the planet during the early Pre-Noachian period, prior to about 4.1 billion years ago. This revelation opens new avenues for understanding ancient Martian hydrothermal systems and the planet's past capacity to support life.

The study, led by Jack Gillespie, a former research associate at Curtin now at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, also involved researchers from the University of Adelaide.