New data extracted by NASA’s Perseverance confirms that Jezero Crater, the Martian area it has been exploring since its touchdown, is indeed the site of a huge ancient lake. The rover discovered geological structures that NASA researchers say could have only been formed by a flowing river for a longer period. The findings were published in the journal Science.
Images of a faraway structure show distinct layers of sediment that wouldn’t have formed in a dry atmosphere, which has confirmed that the Red Planet hosted huge lakes or even oceans similar to our planet.
Jezero has always been the prime target
Scientists have long believed that Jezero Crater used to be a lake, but they had never been able to prove it. They had no way to determine whether any surface water on Mars persisted for long durations.
“Without driving anywhere, the rover was able to solve one of the big unknowns, which was that this crater was once a lake,” said Benjamin Weiss, study co-author and MIT planetary scientist. “Until we actually landed there and confirmed it was a lake, it was always a question.”
The sediment layers will also serve as a prime location to look for ancient fossils, notes Space.com, as whatever river deposited the minerals there could also have carried microbes or other organisms as well.
Why Mars has no water left?
“The most surprising thing that’s come out of these images is the potential opportunity to catch the time when this crater transitioned from an Earth-like habitable environment to this desolate landscape wasteland we see now,” Weiss added. “These boulder beds may be records of this transition, and we haven’t seen this in other places on Mars.”
Previously, scientists suggested why there’s no water left on Mars. There’s a possibility that a period of volcanic activity altered the climate, while another popular theory suggests the planet’s lack of a strong magnetic field let all the water drift out into space. Researchers learned that during its formation, Mars lost more water than Earth, while retaining more life-supporting molecules than smaller, drier bodies like the Moon.
