Overview

• Findings published in Nature Communications identify ferric hydroxysulfate at Aram Chaos and the plateau above Juventae Chasma.
• Researchers interpret formation by geothermal heating at Aram Chaos and volcanic heating by ash or lava at Juventae during the Amazonian period.
• The mineral forms at 50–100 degrees Celsius in acidic conditions with oxygen and water, refining clues to past habitability.
• UMass Amherst's deep-learning atmospheric correction and pixel-level anomaly mapping isolated the signature in CRISM data first noted in 2010.
• SETI Institute and NASA Ames reproduced the compound in the lab, with formal mineral status on Earth pending discovery of a natural counterpart.