Updated: November 23, 2020 6:26:27 pm
In a NASA photo, a self-portrait taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover at Gale Crater, at the center of which is Mount Sharp, a 3.4-mile-high mound, on June 15, 2018. Apparently Mars burps up a large amount of a gas that could be a sign of microbes living on the planet today. (File Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS via The New York Times)
Mars has always intrigued scientists by its ability to sustain life. Now a published research study in scientific reports earlier this month suggests that about four billion years ago floods of unimaginable magnitude passed through Gale Crater on the equator of Mars. The research findings were determined from data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover.
Scientists from Jackson State University, Cornell University. the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Hawaii teamed up to reach this conclusion. The findings hint that Mars was capable of supporting life long ago. The mega-flood event may have been the result of heat produced by a meteoric impact. The series of events released the stored ice on the surface of Mars, causing giant waves.
Study co-author Alberto G. Fairén said that detailed sedimentological data was the key to the new discovery and the reason it did not come to light was because “the deposits left by the mega-floods had not previously been identified. of the orbiter “.
According to the lead author, Ezat Heydari, the “megaripples” or “antidunes” were 30 feet high and about 450 feet apart. Scientists were also able to draw parallels between events that happened on Earth and the Red Planet. Heydari believes that these features were formed by melting ice on our planet nearly two million years ago.
It is plausible that a large amount of carbon dioxide and methane was released from the planet’s frozen reservoirs as a result of the meteoric impact. This led to the water entering the Gale crater which then combined with the water coming down from Mount Sharp which is located within it and 5.5 km high from the valley floor. The chain reaction caused gigantic flash floods on the planet, the magnitude of which is still uncertain.
Gale Crater has always fascinated scientists, as the Curiosity rover science team has already confirmed that it was once home to lingering lakes and streams. This research puts a stamp on the possibility of supporting microbial life on the fourth planet of our solar system.
“Early Mars was an extremely active planet from a geological point of view,” Fairén 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.”
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