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Evidence is growing that Mars was once sloshy and wet, draped with lakes and oceans, which lapped at shorelines and deposited sediments that are, even as you read these words, being scrutinized by robots rolling across the now dry and dusty surface.
"Dating these minerals can therefore tell us when there was liquid water at or near the surface of Mars in the planet's geologic past," This is because the amount of the lighter isotope argon-39 that emerges when argon-40 is irradiated in a nuclear reactor is dependent on the amount of potassium that was present initially. This means the argon-39 produced can be used as a proxy for potassium; and, since potassium decays at a known rate, this means that scientists can work out how long it has been since the rock formed.
"The age could have been affected by the impact that ejected the Lafayette Meteorite from Mars, the heating Lafayette experienced during the 11 million years it was floating out in space, or the heating Lafayette experienced when it fell to Earth and burned up a little bit in Earth's atmosphere,"
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