Want another piece of evidence to put in the truther "life on Mars" vault? Traces of opal have been found on a Martian meteorite -- more specifically, the infamous Nakhla meteorite - which may indicate the existence of microbial life on Mars and which areas to search for them.
A team of astronomers from the University of Glasgow, the Natural History Museum in London, the Center for Microscopy and Spectroscopy in Germany, and the Scottish Universities Environtmental Research Center detailed their findings in Meteoritrics & Planetary Science, where they state that remnants of opal-A (also known as a "fire opal," a variation of the semi-precious stone with a red and orange cast) were detected with the help of a scanning electron microscope.
Nakhla's gem vestiges are theorized to have been caused by an admixture of H2O and silica (the dioxide form of silicon) native to the meteorite. This lends itself to the idea that not only did hot springs exist at one point on Mars, which is key to how opals are formed, but that microbial life, which thrives in the environment that hot springs create, could have also been present.
"[We] know that on Earth opals like these are often formed in and around hot springs," wrote Martin Lee, a professor at the Environmental Research Center and the lead scientist on the project. "Microbial life thrives in these conditions, and opal can trap and preserve these microbes for millions of years. If Martian microbes existed, it's possible they too may be preserved in opal deposits on the surface of Mars."
The Nakhla meteorite, said to be derived from a Martian lava flow or sill, is named after the town (full name El Nakhla El Bahariya) in Egypt, where the meteorite fragments were recovered. Classified as an achrondite, or a stone devoid of chondrules, the Nakhla meterorite fell to Earth in 1911; upon impact with Earth's atmosphere, the meteorite broke into 40 or so fragments, many of which are now housed in institutions such as the British Museum and the Smithsonian Institution.
Nakhla is somewhat of a legendary talisman in the world of astronomy, namely due to the apocryphal story of "the Nakhla Dog," wherein a local claimed to have witnessed one of the fragments careen into a dog, instantly vaporizing it. Because there were no other witnesses on the scene, the story is unverifiable to this day.
For more information on the Nakhla meteorite, listen to the podcast below.
