Discovery of first ruby-like crystals on Mars

 NASA rover found fluorescent ruby-like gems on Mars

NASA's Perseverance rover has made a surprising discovery on Mars, finding tiny crystals of corundum. The minerals which form rubies and sapphires were embedded in Martian pebbles. This marks the first time such gems have been spotted on the Red Planet. The hints of the mineral were first spotted by Ann Ollila and her colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The discovery was made using the SuperCam instrument on the Perseverance rover, which analysed rocks like Hampden River, Coffee Cove and Smiths Harbour. Small, ruby-like crystals embedded in Martian rocks, which may also hide sapphires created in the fury of meteorite impacts. NASA's Perseverance rover found evidence of ruby-like crystals in a rock named Coffee Cove along with two others, a gemological first on the Red Planet. Mars is hiding a clutch of ruby-like crystals in its rocks, observations from the Perseverance rover suggest, and astronomers say other precious minerals, like sapphires, could exist across the Red Planet, too.

The Perseverance rover has found precious stones inside Martian pebbles. These gem grains are made of a substance called corundum, which is also known as ruby or sapphire depending on the traces of metals within it. Ann Ollila at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and her colleagues first spotted hints of corundum while using Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument to examine a rock called Hampden River. SuperCam has several different ways to test a material’s composition, using two different lasers to either burn off its surface or provoke luminescence, then two cameras to examine the resulting light. In both tests, the results for Hampden River were nearly identical to the results from rubies measured in the lab, indicating the presence of tiny grains of corundum in the rock. An international team of researchers presented the findings, based on observations from spring 2025, March 16 at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas. These findings are currently under peer review. The story begins a short time ago on a planet not too far away, when a roving robot the size of a compact car climbed the side of a 4 billion-year-old impact crater and began exploring its rim. On that ancient and stony rim, NASA's Perseverance rover found a curious scattering of pale-colored "float rocks", out-of-place rocks which must have been transported there by impacts, geological activity or hydrological processes.

The results showed tiny grains of corundum, less than 0.2 mm's across, which shone brightly when hit with a laser. Unlike Earth, Mars doesn't have plate tectonics, so the corundum likely formed when meteorites smashed into the ground, heating and compressing the dust. As scientists often do when faced with a curious specimen, they blasted it with a laser, specifically, the green laser from the Perseverance rover's SuperCam, situated atop its mast. This laser excites minerals, causing them to emit light at specific wavelengths. And because every element and compound emits certain wavelengths of light, this reveals a sample's chemical composition. It's also likely that the crystals formed under different conditions than those on our planet. On Earth, corundum is created through metamorphic and igneous processes, in which intense heat and pressure, facilitated by tectonic activity, transform existing rocks into potential gemstones. But because there is no conclusive evidence for plate tectonics on Mars, the researchers suggest that the ruby-like crystals on the Red Planet may have formed through cosmic impacts. "The impacts provide high temperatures and high pressures, which can produce corundum. Hydrothermal fluids are also generated," Payré explained. Yet the researchers must find additional samples, at their origin, to describe their formation mechanism. "As of now, the corundum crystals were found in small pebbles that are coming from elsewhere, i.e., they are out of context. It is therefore difficult to constrain the full story," Payré said.

"[Corundum] usually is associated, on Earth, with tectonism. It's a very specific environment - you have to have a very silica-poor environment, very aluminium-rich," as quoted, Ollila said. "I was very surprised," Allan Treiman of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas said during the conference session. The analysis showed that three of the laser-blasted float rocks exhibited clear signatures of the mineral corundum, with inclusions of the element chromium, crystals which match the chemical description of rubies. However, because the crystals are too small to be seen by Perseverance's imager, and their exact chemical composition is uncertain, the researchers aren't sure whether they have truly found Martian rubies or perhaps some other type of corundum. "The different types of corundum are based on the chemistry," study co-author Valerie Payré, a planetary geologist at the University of Iowa. "Although corundum is Al2O3, there are minor elements like chromium, titanium, and iron that can be present." The match is nearly identical. "These elements will provide the color to the mineral, and the name of it," Payré added. "We cannot quantify the amount of chromium, and other elements like iron and titanium might be present too. It is thus difficult to conclude whether they are rubies or other types of corundum [like sapphires]." The team ultimately classified the crystals as corundum and declined to guess about the variety without more chemical evidence.

Corundum is a mineral made of aluminum and oxygen. It is one of the hardest known natural substances, approaching the toughness of diamonds. Pure corundum is colorless, but microscopic impurities imbue it with brilliant hues. Iron or titanium inclusions yield brilliant blue sapphires, while chromium produces even rarer, resplendent rubies. As of now, the corundum crystals were found in small pebbles which are coming from elsewhere, i.e., they are out of context. However, anyone holding out hope for a future Martian-gemstone-studded necklace may be disappointed. The corundum crystals found within the float rocks are tiny,  less than 0.2 mm's (0.008 inches) in diameter. Could slightly larger Martian rubies exist? "Yes, possibly," study co-author Olivier Beyssac, a senior scientist at the French National Center for Scientific Research said. "Anyway corundum is pretty rare on Earth and rarely present as big crystals so one could expect the same on Mars." Rubies are far from the only spectacular stones found at Jezero crater, and further research may reveal sapphire-like stones there as well. In the past, scientists also discovered signs of other potential gemstones elsewhere on Mars, including quartz and opal, suggesting that our red planetary neighbor is a gem laboratory. "In retrospect, one might not have been, because there are aluminium-rich outcrops elsewhere on the planet and there are impacts, but I thought it was very shocking to see this. I would love to be able to pick one of those up and analyse it and see if it looks red - it's pretty disappointing that all you can see is this white pebble," Ollila said, further adding that when they were hit with the SuperCam laser, they shone brightly. This discovery provides new insights into Mars' geological history and suggests the planet has remained chemically and thermally active more recently than previously believed by us.

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Earth’s magnetic field

 Earth's strong magnetic field protects us from radiation’s damaging effects 

Barreling through the universe with incredible power and speed, galactic cosmic rays are a major source of radiation in space. But thanks to Earth’s strong magnetic field, these charged particles don’t usually make it directly to our planet, so we are protected from the radiation’s damaging effects. This field may be doing much more: new data collected by China’s Chang’e 4 lunar lander shows that our magnetic field’s influence is so powerful that it extends farther into space than previously believed, stretching even beyond the moon. A major defense against everything space throws at us, Earth’s magnetic field may even protect the moon from damaging galactic cosmic rays. Though it is far from Earth’s magnetic core, the moon feels even more of the core’s effects than scientists previously thought. High-energy particles called galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) bombard unprotected objects in space, often causing damage. Earth magnetic field creates a protective shell around the planet which can deflect dangerous charged particles, like GCRs. The moon is known to pass through the tail-like part of Earth's magnetosphere, but a new study, suggests the moon might experience additional protection at another point in its orbit. Although this pocket of protection exists when the moon is outside of the magnetosphere, researchers believe the effects are still due to Earth's magnetic field.

Illustration of the formation of the GCR cavity in the ecliptic plane. white lines from the Sun show the typical pattern of magnetic field lines in interplanetary space, referred to as the Parker spiral IMF. The magenta segment of the lunar orbit (dashed white circle) indicates the operational periods of LND, specifically from LP = 7.5 to 16.5 hM. The cylindrical spirals in two colors indicate two opposing directions of motion for GCR protons along the magnetic field lines. Shielded by Earth's magnetic field, two regions of reduced GCRs in the near-Earth space are expected to exist, as marked by the shadowed areas. When the Moon moves to the afternoon sector, the angle (φ) between the IMF and the Earth-Moon vector reaches 90◦ at LP = ∼16 hM, allowing the propagation of GCRs to remain unobstructed in the afternoon sector. 

When the research team analyzed data taken from the Lunar Lander Neutron and Dosimetry (LND), onboard China's Chang'E-4 lander, they were surprised to find that the LND experienced a 20% dip in GCR particles hitting detectors while the lander was on the moon's far side. This occurred at a specific time during the lunar "morning" and only for about 2 days each lunar cycle. Since the LND took data over 31 cycles, the team could see that this was not just a one-off occurrence. This was unexpected because it was previously assumed that GCRs are evenly distributed in the space between Earth and the moon, outside Earth's magnetosphere. Researchers describe a “cavity” in space between Earth and the moon where cosmic rays are deflected by Earth’s magnetic field. This suggests that the effects of our planet’s magnetism are present much farther from us than anyone could have expected. GCRs consist of different types of charged particles with varying energies. Most (about 85%) are protons, while about 12% are helium atoms, and only around 1% are heavier nuclei. The data showed that the reduction in particle count was most pronounced for lower-energy protons. Higher energy particle counts were also reduced, but to a lesser degree.

Launched in 2018, Chang’e 4 was the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon. Among the many scientific instruments onboard was the Lunar Lander Neutron and Dosimetry experiment, which was designed to measure the radiation future astronauts might experience if they were to land there. Scientists had long assumed most of the moon lay beyond the protection of Earth’s magnetic field, but in 2019 scientists began noticing something odd about the experiment’s data which suggested the moon was somewhat protected from galactic cosmic rays. Magnetic fields don't simply stop existing at a certain point. Instead, their influence just decreases more and more with distance away from the source. The magnetosphere is the region where Earth's magnetic field prevails over the solar wind magnetic field. So, although the moon was outside of Earth's magnetosphere during these points of lower particle counts, its magnetic field was still exerting some degree of magnetic force, enough to influence the GCR particles. The team says that the particles were deflected due to the gyroradii of the particles, which is the radius of the circular motion they follow in the presence of a uniform magnetic field. This is also dependent on the mass of the particle, its velocity and its charge. "The size of Earth's magnetosphere on the dayside extends about 6 to 10 Earth radii, which is comparable to the gyroradii of lower-energy protons. Therefore, the lower-energy particles are easily affected by Earth's magnetic field because of their smaller gyroradii compared to the higher-energy particles," the study authors write.

The finding came as “a surprise,” says Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber, a co-author of the study and a physicist at Kiel University in Germany. “Personally, I didn’t believe it for a long, long time. I thought it was an artifact in the data until we did a lot of statistical tests.” Galactic cosmic rays originate from a variety of sources in space, such as stars, supernovae and black holes. These diverse origins mean that by the time the rays get near Earth, they don’t all carry the same level of energy. The highest-energy particles move quickly through the solar system, while some of the weaker particles linger, and their radiation could affect astronauts, Wimmer-Schweingruber says. “These low-energy particles weren’t that interesting to us until we saw this effect, and then we realized this is actually important for the skin dose of astronauts,” he says. Although the full spatial extent of the cavity is not precisely determined yet, the team believes these findings are valuable for future space missions. Knowing where areas of reduced radiation are can help to keep astronauts and equipment safer on future missions, since GCR particles are seriously detrimental to human health and can damage equipment. This finding provides a potential strategy for mission planning, especially for manned lunar missions and extravehicular activities, as operations could be timed to coincide with these lower radiation periods to reduce exposure risk. Future studies with extended datasets could further clarify the spatial extent and behavior of this cavity, offering deeper insights into potential radiation protection strategies, not only for the Earth-Moon system but potentially for missions near other magnetized bodies within the solar system," the study authors write.

Shielding astronauts from the dangers of radiation is critical to ensuring a human presence in space. This means creating materials which are light enough to bring into space but protective enough to keep radiation at bay, says Philip Metzger, a professor of planetary science and space technology at the University of Central Florida. Knowing more about the distribution of radiation in space, and especially between the moon and Earth, could help scientists plan safer missions. To further validate these findings, the team conducted particle simulations to model the effect of Earth's magnetic field on GCR propagation. These simulations, along with previous additional spacecraft data confirmed the observed reduction in GCRs at these locations. If NASA’s plan to put humans on the moon in a semipermanent capacity comes to pass, then it may make sense for astronauts to schedule activities outside any sheltered habitats while the moon is within the influence of Earth’s magnetic field. “It is brilliant research, and it just shows us that the more we study phenomena outside of our planet, the more we discover we don’t know,” Metzger says. “That’s why we need to do space missions.”

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