A chemical found in the soil of Chile's Atacama Desert is also in the soil on Mars. Perchlorate was detected weeks ago with Phoenix's wet chemistry kit.
The first set of testing used water from Earth to mix with the soil of Mars. More extensive testing is still ongoing to determine the exact chemical composition of the
Perchlorate samples.
Some say that this chemical proves that life on Mars would be impossible. The highly reactive salt is used on Earth in several products including fertilizer, fireworks and rock fuel.
NASA is not confirming that the chemical find is a negative and at least one, Peter Smith, principal investigator on the Phoenix mission, says that the chemical may be a positive.
The desert in Chile interestingly enough has been used in testing for researchers when they were working on conditions on Mars. It is about 50 times drier than Death Valley. The 600-mile desert is not uninhabited. Microbes have flourished there.
At one point NASA thought that the soil could have been contaminated by the rocket engines that brought the Phoenix to Mars. That has been proven not to be the case because the engines use hydrazine, not chlorine. It also seems unlikely because when the rover landed there was no perchlorate found during the first wet chemistry lab on May 25.
Perchlorate is soluble in water. Because of this it is rarely found in surface soil on Earth. It has not rained on Mars for billions of years making the soil dry even with an underground sheet of ice.
when the Mars Science Lab lands further testing on how widespread the chemicals are in the soil.
Perchlorate Found In Martian Soil
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