Boron was found on Mars in the mineral veins of calcium sulfate. The element was found thanks to the remote exploration tool Chemistry and Camera, abbreviated as ChemCam, which is part of NASA's Martian Science Laboratory, delivered to Gale Crater by the Curiosity rover four years ago.
According to Patrick Gasda, an employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, until this time, none of the Martian missions had been able to find boron. The ChemCam unit itself is a pulsed laser, the beam of which is needed to vaporize small parts of solid materials. Using the spectrometer further in the work, it turns out to very accurately determine the wavelengths of the emitted light, on the basis of which the exact chemical composition of any substance is already calculated.
It is noted that boron spectral lines were observed in 23 Martian calcium sulfate veins. Three of them were located in a place called Yellow Knife Bay, and the other twenty were in the layered cliffs of the Murray Hills and in the Stimson sandstone layer. According to the data provided by the source, the boron content in Gale Crater ranges from 10 to 100 ppm.
In conclusion, Hasda said that in the case when the boron found on Mars is the same as on Earth, the groundwater of ancient Mars, which formed these veins, had a temperature of 0 to 60 degrees Celsius and a pH of neutral to alkaline. Boron is most commonly found in arid regions where most of the water has long since evaporated. Sources cite the example of Death Valley, a park with the driest and hottest climate among the US national parks, where borax, sodium salt and boric acid were actively mined until recently. However, as scientists note, they are not yet able to draw unambiguous conclusions about the circumstances.
Karina Yasko