Rock layers successful Kodiak butte connected Mars successful an representation taken by the Perseverance rover NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/IRAP/LPG
The past water that erstwhile sat successful Jezero crater connected Mars flooded billions of years ago, transporting ample boulders done a stream delta, and depositing fine-grained clay that could perchance sphere signs of past life.
Nicolas Mangold astatine the University of Nantes successful France and his colleagues analysed photographs of a cliff look taken by NASA’s Perseverance rover from February to May 2021.
The researchers recovered 3 parts to a stone enactment called Kodiak butte, astatine the opening of the lake. At the top, determination are ample boulders, the largest of which is 1.5 metres wide and 1 metre high, that suggest the travel of h2o into the water sped up capable astatine 1 constituent that it could transportation the rocks implicit tens of kilometres.
Below the boulders, they recovered a build-up of sediment that pointed to a dependable and accordant stream travel earlier the boulder-carrying floods deed the crater. We person nary thought what caused the floods, Mangold says.
Meanwhile connected the lowest furniture the squad saw grounds of mudstones which Mangold says are astir susceptible of storing signs of past life.
“These images are a rock-solid lawsuit for the beingness of a sustained water astatine Jezero crater,” says Joe Levy astatine Colgate University successful the US. “The features I’m astir excited about… are these muddier, finer-grained parts of the delta [which] person ne'er been explored connected Mars and person the champion accidental of preserving integrated substance oregon different clues to whether immoderate organisms could person called the water location during Mars’ aboriginal warmer, wetter period.”
There is currently nary liquid h2o connected Mars due to the fact that the satellite is excessively acold and the unit successful the ambiance is excessively low. But 3.7 cardinal years ago, h2o flowed connected the planet.
The 3 stone layers successful the images from Perseverance look emblematic of a shoreline and look similar those recovered successful basins successful the Nevada desert, says Mangold.
The water was recovered successful Jezero crater which has a diameter of 45 kilometres. “We judge the water was astir 35 kilometres wide and astir 900 quadrate kilometres successful area,” says Mangold.
But determination is inactive a batch we don’t cognize astir the lake. “We cognize determination was a stream entering the crater to the west,” says Mangold. “There is nary uncertainty that’s wherever the h2o would person travel from but it’s unclear if it came from glacial lakes upstream oregon was it conscionable rain?”
We besides don’t cognize however aged it is oregon erstwhile it dried up, nor whether the h2o was caller oregon salty, a question that could interaction the types of potential beingness it whitethorn person sustained.
Journal reference: Science, DOI: doi/10.1126/science.abl4051
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