When searching water on Mars It is important not only to find deposits that are still preserved on the planet. Traces of past water masses are also important. This may indicate that life once existed, much more than has ever been discovered. One of the people responsible for searching for these possible traces is Perseverancea rover that will analyze the delta of the ancient lake starting in 2021.
Their work directly on the ground is of vital importance, since no matter how many orbiters are sent to surround Red PlanetTo find past traces of water on Mars, there is no choice but to analyze the rocks beneath its surface.
For this reason, Perseverance is equipped with instruments that can periodically take measurements of the terrain over which it moves. The accompanying ship landed in Jezero Crater. It is believed that there was a lake in this area long ago. Now, thanks to the rover’s latest measurements, the suspicion has become a reality, and the chances of finding traces of life on the neighboring planet have increased.
Persistence in searching for traces of water on Mars
From May to December 2022, Perseverance, a robot from car sizedrove from the crater to the supposed delta of the lake.
Along the way, he used one of his instruments to fire a radar wave every 10 centimeters underground. In this way he managed to obtain a metro map, which has now been analyzed in a study published in Science Progress scientists from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of Oslo.
Data obtained by Perseverance shows that the sediments beneath this area were not deposited all at once. There are actually two separate layers, separated two periods of erosion. That is, one layer was applied, washed out, then another was applied and washed out again. On the other hand, the resulting images show that the sediments are horizontal and flat, just like in lakes on Earth.
Confirmation of what we already expected
Orbiters analyzing Mars from a distance sent back images that raised suspicions about the presence of a lake in the Jezero Crater and delta in its vicinity. Now, thanks to data obtained beneath its surface, this hypothesis can be considered with much greater confidence. In addition, the scientists who made this discovery made reconstruction what the facts might have been.
According to Perseverance, it is possible that the crater from the impact of some celestial object was filled with water, fed by river. Thus, a lake would form, at the bottom of which soil sediments would be deposited, as in land lakes. Subsequently, the lake shrank, so that sediment from the river, without having the usual route, spread out, forming a delta.
Therefore, there was two sediment deposits. The first, during which the lake was formed, and the second, during the formation of the delta. Many years passed between one period and another. Therefore, in the meantime, sediments will be eroded both under the influence of the water itself and other agents.
All this suggests that, as was already intuitively understood even before the launch of the Perseverance mission, Jezero Crater is an ideal place to search for life. He water on Mars It’s the best indicator, and from what we’ve seen, it seems like it was sweeping through the area in streams a long time ago. We’ll have to wait for the samples the rover takes to return to Earth, but the story is still promising.
Source: Hiper Textual
