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720 Million Years Old Rock Found In a University Drawer Reveals Evidence of Water on Mars

The space rock measures around 2 inches (5 centimeters) long and has been named Lafayette meteorite.

PUBLISHED NOV 24, 2024

Lafayette (stone) meteorite. Martian Calcium-rich Pyroxenite. Found in 1931, Indiana. (Cover Image Source: Wikimedia Commons | Photo by Claire H.)

Mars has always been an intriguing prospect for scientists. Several expeditions have been sent to the planet to get information about its environment. However, the most recent discovery regarding the Red Planet having water for 742 million years did not come from any ongoing missions. Instead, it came out of a sample safely tucked in the drawers of Purdue University, Live Science reported.

This sample came out in the open in 1931. Initially, no one thought about the space connection of the rock. After five decades, a series of tests and more knowledge about outer space proved that the glassy chunk of rock was once a part of Mars.

Mars, illustration. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is a rocky desert world. It orbits the Sun at an average distance of around 227 million kilometres. Its diameter is around half Earth's. The red colour is due to the iron oxides in the rocks (Image Source: Getty Images/Photo by NEMES LASZLO/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY) — Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. (Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by NEMES LASZLO| SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)

The space rock measures around 2 inches (5 centimeters) long and has been named Lafayette meteorite, Live Science reported. It was randomly found in the drawers of the institution and later confirmed as a Mars rock based on data collected by NASA's Viking landers.

Further studies indicated that the minerals in the sample had interacted with liquid water during its formation. Considering that the rock's origin was Mars, it meant that the planet during the formation of the Lafayette meteorite had water inside it. In the 1980s experts did not have the technology to find out the rock's age, and hence that detail remained undiscovered.

Researchers with the help of new technology unveiled the answer to this question and published their findings in Geochemical Perspective Letters. The team examined the variations displayed by Aragon molecules in the sample, to determine its precise age. The method also took into consideration the heat and impact, undertaken by the sample after its arrival on Earth.

"We dated these minerals in the Martian meteorite Lafayette and found that they formed 742 million years ago," lead author Marissa Tremblay, an assistant professor with the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University said, Science Daily reported.

Petrographic context of Lafayette iddingsite. (a) Backscattered electron image showing an olivine grain (Ol) surrounded by augite crystals (Px) and cut by iddingsite-filled veins (Id). (b) Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) X-ray map showing potassium enrichment (brighter grey) in iddingsite. Data were collected using a Carl Zeiss Sigma scanning electron microscope (SEM) at the University of Glasgow, operated in high-vacuum mode at 20 kV and ∼2 nA. (Image Source: Geochemical Perspective Letters) — Petrographic context of Lafayette iddingsite. (Image Source: Geochemical Perspective Letters)

The testing also revealed the circumstances in which the rock was formed, Science Daily reported. "We do not think there was abundant liquid water on the surface of Mars at this time," Tremblay said. "Instead, we think the water came from the melting of nearby subsurface ice called permafrost, and that the permafrost melting was caused by magmatic activity that still occurs periodically on Mars to the present day."

It is not precisely known when the rock arrived on Earth, Live Science reported. In 2022, researchers examined the trace amounts of a crop fungus on the sample's surface and speculated it could have landed in 1919.