Mars' Atmosphere Was Likely More Oxygen-Rich Long Ago

Ancient Mars was even more Earth-like than scientists had thought, a new study suggests. NASA's Curiosity rover has detected high concentrations of manganese oxide minerals in Red Planet rocks, suggesting that the Martian atmosphere contained more oxygen billions of years ago than it does today, researchers said. "The only ways on Earth that we know how to make these manganese materials involve atmospheric oxygen or microbes," study lead author Nina Lanza, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos Nat