Determining when water first appeared, where, and for how long, are all burning questions that drive Mars exploration.

This single tiny crystal may have told us more about the red planet’s first few hundred million years than every other source ...

A rock that formed around 4.5 billion years ago on Mars before being blasted into space by a meteor strike and making its way ...

There was water on Mars as early as 4.45 billion years ago, just a short time after the planet formed from the leftover dust ...

We studied the mineral zircon in a meteorite from Mars and found evidence that water was present when the zircon crystal formed 4.45 billion years ago. Our results, published in the journal Science ...

The zircon we studied is 4.45 billion years old. Within it, iron, aluminum and sodium are preserved in abundance patterns like concentric layers, similar to an onion. This pattern, called ...

The essential ingredient for life, water, appeared on both planets around 4.4 billion years ago, new research indicates.