Are there precious minerals on mars

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But the discovery of jarosite particles locked in Antarctica 's ice may support the theory, the researchers reported in a paper published Jan. Related: 7 most Mars-like places on Earth. On Earth, jarosite is a rare mineral that crops up in mining waste exposed to air and rain, Science reported. It can also form near the vents of volcanoes , according to NASA.

Baccolo and his colleagues never expected to find the mineral in Antarctica, he told Science; but when the team pulled a roughly mile-long 1, meters ice core from the ground, they found trace particles of jarosite, smaller than grains of sand, buried in the deepest layers of the ice. After examining the particles with an electron microscope, the team deduced that the jarosite had formed in pockets within the ice. This finding hints that the mineral formed in the same way on Mars, although on the Red Planet, jarosite appears in "meters-thick deposits," not as a few sparse grains, Megan Elwood Madden, a geochemist at The University of Oklahoma who was not involved with the research, told Science.

These ultra-thick slabs of jarosite may have formed on Mars because the Red Planet is far dustier than Antarctica, providing more raw material to form jarosite, Baccolo noted. Water ice could provide not only drinking water but also hydrogen, from electrolysis, to combine with atmospheric CO2 to produce fuel or plastics for use in 3D printing of equipment and spare parts.

Clathrates could provide both fuel and water. Magnesium from evaporite deposits could be used to create magnesium hydride as a way to store hydrogen. Zeolites might be used for energy storage in batteries and extraction of water from the Martian atmosphere.

Nickel from nickel-iron meteorites could be used as a catalyst in the production of methane and ethane fuels, while ores would be refined to produce metal for equipment. REEs could be used to produce magnets for electronics and motors, and also for phosphors in screens and LED lights. REEs are usually associated with thorium, which was recently proposed to fuel nuclear power sources on Mars.

In summary, a variety of in situ minerals will need to be utilized to fabricate solar cells, electrical wire, structural beams, rods, plates, bricks, cables, pipes, and storage vessels for water, with robots doing the habitat construction ahead of human arrival. Discovery of in situ resources on Mars is ongoing but the task of finding potential habitat sites within working distance of them is in its infancy.

In contrast, remote sensing done from Martian orbit is a cost effective means to find these resources without setting a foot on the surface. Upwards of 40 minerals have been identified on the Martian surface by orbital spectrometers. This unprecedented dataset is available via the NASA Planetary Data System, with variable spectral resolution covering up to channels at spatial resolutions down to 17 x 17 m pixels. Altogether, these datasets are ripe for locating the mineral resources necessary to build the infrastructure for future human exploration and eventual colonization on Mars.