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Analyzing data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover, scientists discovered that flooding of unimaginable magnitude passed through Gale Crater on the Mars equator about four billion years ago.
The discovery, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggests the possibility that life may have existed on the Red Planet.
The raging mega-flood – likely triggered by heat from a meteorite impact, which released stored ice on the Martian surface – created gigantic ripples that are telltale geological structures familiar to scientists on Earth.
“We identified mega-floods for the first time using detailed sedimentological data observed by the Curiosity rover,” said co-author Alberto Fairen, visiting astrobiologist at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
“The deposits left by the mega-floods had not been previously identified with the data from the orbiter.”
As is the case on Earth, geological features, including the work of water and wind, have been frozen in time on Mars for about four billion years. These characteristics convey processes that have shaped the surface of both planets in the past.
This case includes the appearance of giant wave-shaped features in the sedimentary layers of Gale Crater, often referred to as “mega-pearls” or antidunes about 9 meters high and spaced about 450 meters apart, according to the lead author of the study Ezat Heydari, professor of physics. at Jackson State University, Mississippi, USA.
Antidunes point to mega-floods that sank to the bottom of Mars’ Gale crater about four billion years ago, which is identical to the features formed by the melting ice on Earth about two million years ago, Heydari said.
The most likely cause of the flooding on Mars was the melting ice caused by heat generated by a large impact, which released carbon dioxide and methane from the planet’s frozen reservoirs.
The water vapor and the evolution of gas combined to produce a short period of hot and humid conditions on the Red Planet.
The condensation formed clouds of water vapor, which in turn created torrential, eventually planetary rains.
The science team of the Curiosity rover has already established that Gale Crater once had persistent lakes and streams in the ancient past.
These long-lived bodies of water are good indicators that the crater, as well as Mount Sharp within, was able to support microbial life.
“The beginning of Mars was an extremely geologically active planet,” Fairen said.
“The planet had the necessary conditions to support the presence of liquid water on the surface – and on Earth, where there is water, there is life.
“So early on, Mars was a habitable planet,” he says.
“Was it inhabited? That’s a question the next Perseverance rover … will help answer.”
Perseverance, which launched on July 30, is expected to reach March on February 18, 2021.
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