Whenever the stargazers of ancient Babylon focused their attention on Mars, they regarded its reddish orange glow as an omen of bloodshed and disaster. Looking more objectively at the red planet through powerful telescopes, modern astronomers have attributed its odd color to deposits of iron-rich minerals like limonite. Now two former University of Massachusetts researchers have proposed a new explanation of the puzzling Martian hue. During a recent meeting at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, Physicists William T. Plummer and Robert K. Carson reported that parts of Mars...
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