Posted on by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Mars Doesn’t Have as Many Minerals as Earth

Even though Mars and Earth had similar early histories, including water, Mars still ended up with fewer minerals than Earth. Why? Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Even though Mars and Earth had similar early histories, including water, Mars still ended up with fewer minerals than Earth. Why? Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Earth and Mars are very much alike, but also very different. Among other things, scientists find that Earth is much more mineral-rich than the Red Planet. It has 6,000 different minerals. By contrast, Mars has only 161. That’s a big difference. How could this have happened?

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