Are we alone in the universe?It seems difficult to believe that the universe could be such a big place and yet we on earth are the only living beings in it. Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t. Scientists have long looked for signs of past or present life on our nearest neighbour, Mars, by looking for the essential ingredient to life as we know it: water.
Hematite has long been associated with Mars. Two thousand years ago, hematite was the stone of the Roman god, Mars, probably because of its association with blood (borrowed from the ancient Greeks). Nowadays, Mars and hematite are hot topics because scientists have found hematite on Mars. In face, they say that hematite is responsible for making the red planet red.
This is important to the search for aliens because hematite is known to form near or with water – often, but not always. According to Dr. Joy Crisp of the California institute of Technology, “grey hematite is a mineral indicator of past water… it is not always associated with water, but it often is.”** Hematite can also be found at volcanos so the real questions is this: was the hematite on Mars made by volcanos or water? They don’t know – yet. But it seems that they might be able to find out by examining the molecular structure of the particular hematite found.
Watch this space.
**http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/spotlight/hematite01.html
