Mars Soil Similar to Hawaiian Volcanic Soil

The first-ever in-depth analysis of Martian dirt reveals a mineralogical makeup similar to that of Hawaiian volcanic soils, researchers announced Tuesday.

The results come from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, which recently studied a scoop of Red Planet dirt with its Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, or CheMin, for the first time.

"This Martian soil that we've analyzed on Mars just this past week appears mineralogically similar to some weathered basaltic materials that we see on Earth," David Bish, a CheMin co-investigator with Indiana University, told reporters. He cited as an example the "weathered soils on the flanks of Mauna Kea in Hawaii."

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