Researchers have uncovered evidence that Mars once had long-lasting lakes and rivers, unlike the extremely temporary appearances of liquid water that seem to exist on the Red Planet today.
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But this week’s announcement is different.
In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli spied what he called “canali” on Mars – Italian for “channels” – but the word was mistranslated as “canals” in English, causing imaginations to run wild.
Mars appears to have flowing rivulets of water, at least in the summer, scientists reported Monday in a finding that boosts the odds of life on the red planet.
“We have tended to think of Mars as being simple,” Grotzinger said. Trails of coarser gravel suggested fast-moving streams, and fine-grained rocks likely formed from mud were found closer to Mount Sharp, which at the time would not have been a mountain, but a basin.
The study painted the most comprehensive picture of how the Gale Crater, an ancient 140 km wide impact basic formed and left a 5 km mound of sediment standing on the crater floor.
Grotzinger theorizes that water may have gotten to the crater rim in the form of snow, or possibly ice that condensed out of the atmosphere. “We once thought of the earth as being simple, too“.
NASA has confirmed the presence of ancient lakes on Mars, which could have existed long enough to support life. “The causes behind this drying still remain a mystery”.
Those salty streaks are remnants of a far wetter early Mars, Grotzinger says.
[Not sure how excited to be about water on Mars? This means that the land had gotten higher as a result of sediments piling up on top of each other over thousands and millions of years.
“We don’t know exactly what the surface temperature of Mars was during that time”, says University of Utah Geologist Marjorie Chan.
Why doesn’t Mars look like that now? Right now, scientists can’t explain why the planet was warmer – and covered in rivers and lakes – at a time it should’ve been colder. But it didn’t last. They are relying on Curiosity’s observations to reveal more about the Red Planet and its past. Once that protective shield was gone, its atmosphere was slowly stripped away by the Sunday. Under those conditions, water evaporates. Vasadava is also a co-author of the new Science article published yesterday in a press release.
That document lays out the three stages of NASA’s plan to get to Mars. What does it tell us about the possibility of life elsewhere in our galaxy and universe? Something happened to all that water – but when and why? This new discovery shows how a system of lakes may have been sustained for perhaps millions of years.
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The scientists also found that Mars once had large bodies of liquid water on its surface for impressively long periods of time.
