Researchers have been working ever since to unravel the secrets of the meteorite. Scientists working independently in labs in Austin and Houston used two different techniques to establish when the carbonate minerals were formed, according to Dr. James N. Connelly, assistant professor at UT Austin s department of geological sciences. At least two models have been proposed for the formation of the carbonate vein. One suggests that water passed through an existing fracture, depositing the carbonate minerals. Because water is considered essential for the existence of life, the presence or absence of water on Mars when the carbonate vein formed is central to the issue of life on Mars, as well as to the formation of the carbonate vein.
Independent evidence suggests that early Mars had a warm, wet climate.
But surface water has not existed on Mars for the last 3.8 billion to 3.5 billion years. A date of 3.9 billion years for the carbonate vein, and the strange shapes inside it, places them within the time range when surface water is thought to have existed on the planet. The research was published recently in Science, a weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Lars E. Borg, a research scientist at the Meteoritics Institute at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, is lead author and Dr. Larry E. Nyquist, of the Planetary Sciences Branch of the Johnson Space Center's Earth Science and Solar System Exploration Division, is the principle investigator. Martian material was thrown far out into space, floating as space debris for about 16 million years.