(NLDO) - A European spacecraft has discovered alien salt fields that are very similar to what humans often create on Earth.
According to Sci-News, a new analysis based on data from the European Space Agency (ESA) TGO orbiter has discovered where alien life could be hiding in the Terra Sirenum region on Mars.
These are chloride-bearing sedimentary plates with diameters ranging from 300-3,000 m.
A total of 965 such patches were recorded by the TGO's Color and Stereoscopic Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS).
The "salt fields" appear purple in images taken by the TGO spacecraft's CaSSIS instrument - Photo: ESA
The research team led by Dr. Valentin Bickel from the University of Bern (Switzerland) said it is likely that these salt-rich sedimentary plates formed from shallow ponds or salt water evaporated under the sunlight.
They remained permanently on the surface of Mars after the planet lost all of its water, becoming a barren desert several billion years ago.
In other words, these sedimentary patches could be identical to the salt flats humans create to extract salt from seawater on Earth.
According to the research team, that place is very likely the target that future life-hunting ships should aim for.
Of course, although similar to human salt flats, the life we are looking for is not alien, but smaller life forms that can take advantage of this environment to survive.
"Very salty waters could become havens for life, beacons of habitability on Mars because high salt concentrations allow water to remain liquid at temperatures as low as -40°C," the authors explain.
As we know, Mars is much colder than Earth.
In addition, these salt flats also mark areas where liquid water once existed.
Even if life on Mars is extinct, we still have a chance to search for traces of it through salt flat areas like Terra Sirenum.
Additionally, the salt-rich terrain, while not prominent in conventional black-and-white images, appears as a distinctive purple hue in the color infrared images collected by CaSSIS.
Therefore, the TGO spacecraft's CaSSIS instrument promises to help scientists find many locations that may hide clues about alien life.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/canh-dong-muoi-ky-la-la-noi-su-song-ngoai-hanh-tinh-tru-an-196240815151040951.htm
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