A new analysis carried out on the red planet has determined changes in its geography only 400,000 years ago, which in geological times is considered to be little. Additionally, he decreed the presence of a network of fast-moving waterways that drained into Jezero Crater, concluding that Mars may have more water than previously thought.
On the red planet NASA’s Perseverance rover and the china rover zhurong discovered evidence of soggy sand dunes and rushing rivers giving signs that Mars may have had more water than previously thought.
The Chinese rover discovered that due to extreme cold, frost may have cemented the dunes as little as 400,000 years ago , which in geological times is considered to be little. For its part, NASA’s Perseverance picked up signals further west from what was once a mighty river on Mars. The river was part of a network of fast and powerful waterways that drained into Jezero Crater, the area the rover has been exploring since landing more than two years ago.
The results, first seen in 2021, were recently published in Scientific advances. Jani Radebaugh, a researcher at Brigham Young University in Utah who is not involved in either mission, said the two findings “They point to the fact that it’s really valuable to put things on the surface of other planets.” because you learn something new every time.
Zhurong is part of China’s Tianwen-1 Mars exploration mission. It touched down on Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars, on May 15, 2021. It traveled about 2 kilometers and transmitted a torrent of data to Earth. It is currently inactive, having failed to wake up from a scheduled hibernation period. probably due to dust buildup on your solar panels.
However, the Chinese rover proved its worth by almost immediately identifying features that suggested signs of water near the surface of Mars , quickly bringing hydrated minerals back to the area. Evidence also pointed to flash floods in the area around three billion years ago, he says. National Geographic.
Now, Zhurong has found more water signs from more recent times. The dunes near the rover have developed a crust that likely formed as a result of water interacting with minerals. This water could have come from frost that formed on sand dunes in the past, or it could have fallen as snow hundreds of thousands of years ago when the planet’s tilt allowed the snow to fall in this region, reported Nat Geo. .
The crusts are polygonal in shape and their cracks suggest they have repeatedly shrunk and widened over time “like mud cracks,” Radebaugh told National Geographic, who studies sand dunes. “Having these types of shrinking and expanding features suggests that there is relatively recent or modern or ongoing wetting and drying occurring in these dune regions.”
Ralph Milliken, a planetary scientist at Brown University and a member of NASA’s Mars Curiosity mission, told Nat Geo that the dust on Mars is enriched with minerals that can absorb water vapor from the air. If this material covers sand dunes, changes in humidity throughout the season could cause the dust to absorb the water vapor and release it again without liquefying it. But Radebaugh argues that liquid water may have been needed to penetrate the cracks and cause them to expand.
As the Chinese rover investigated the sodden dunes, Perseverance explored the remains of a mighty torrent.
The river discovered by perseverance it could be the largest, deepest and fastest that scientists have found on Mars. More than 20 meters deep in some places depending on the height of the rock formations, scientists believe these are preserved sandbars that could have been formed by a mighty river, although they are also exploring other other explanations.
The region, recently named Haven of Skrinkle along a beach in a British national park, has been of interest to geologists for 15 years. Its rock bands may be remnants of a common feature of the river: sandbars. . These structures form when material flowing downstream accumulates along the edges or in the middle.
“These materials indicate a high-energy river that would carry a lot of debris. . The more powerful the water flow, the easier you can move large pieces of material. It was a joy to look at rocks on another planet and see such familiar processes,” Libby Ives, postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. Statement from NASA.
The team continues to study the Mastcam Z pictures for additional advice. “What’s exciting here is that we’ve entered a new phase in Jezero’s history. And this is the first time we’ve seen environments like this on Mars.” Katie Stack Morgan, associate scientist for the Perseverance Project, JPL, said in the NASA statement. “We think of rivers on a different scale than we had before.”
Source: Latercera
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