Salt? On Mars?

That’s correct…well, at least the potential that salt at one time existed on the planet. NASA‘s Mars Odyssey orbiter has found evidence of salt deposits, which point to places where water was once abundant… as well as where evidence may exist of possible Martian life from the Red Planet’s past. Mikki Osterioo of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, and his team found some 200 areas on southern Mars that reveal spectral characteristics consistent with Chloride minerals. Chloride is part of many types of salt. The sites range in size from about half of a square mile to 25 times that size. Scientists used Odyssey’s Thermal Emission Imaging System to take images in a range of visible light and infrared wavelengths. The camera is designed and operated by Arizona State University in Tempe. Osterioo found the sites by looking through thousands of images processed to reveal, in false colors, compositional differences on the Martian surface. Scientists believe the salt deposits formed approximately 3.5 to 3.9 billion years ago.