The results are published in Science Advances.
NASA’s rover and China’s Zhurong rover have detected signs of wet sand dunes and gushing rivers on the Red Planet. The Chinese rover has found evidence that frost may have cemented the dunes together 400,000 years ago. NASA’s Perseverance has found signs that a fast, powerful waterway has forced its way into Jezero Crater, pouring water at a remarkable rate, according to National Geographic a report.
The results are published in Scientists advance. Zhurong which landed on Mars in May 2021 after failing to wake up from a planned period of hibernation, likely due to dust accumulating on its solar panels.
NASA’s Perseverance has found the largest river ever seen on Mars. The river was more than 66 feet deep in places depending on the height of the rock formations. Scientists believe that these are preserved sandy banks.
The two findings “underscore the fact that putting things on the surfaces of other planets is really beneficial,” said Janie Radebo, a researcher at Brigham Young University in Utah.
The Chinese rover has discovered traces of water on Mars. The dunes near the rover have developed a crust that likely formed when water reacted with minerals. This water may have come from frost that formed on the dunes in the past, or it may have fallen as snow hundreds of thousands of years ago when the planet’s tilt would have allowed snow to fall. In this area, Nat Geo reported.
Crusts refer to polygonal features that have contracted and expanded over time. “The presence of these types of contraction and expansion features indicates that there is relatively recent, recent or ongoing wetting and desiccation occurring in the dune regions.
Ralph Milliken, a planetary scientist at Brown University and a member of NASA’s Mars Curiosity mission, told Nat Geo that Martian dust is rich in minerals that can absorb water vapor from the air. If this material covers the dunes, changes in humidity during the season may cause the dust to absorb water vapor and release it again without becoming a liquid.
“These are likely things that form in many different places on Mars,” Milliken said. “This may be a process that could have occurred across much of the planet in the recent geological past.”
As the Chinese rover investigated dune dips, Perseverance explored the remnants of a great torrent.
The NASA rover has shown that the ancient rivers that once flowed across the planet were much deeper and flowed much faster than researchers previously thought. The river was part of a network of waterways that flow into Jezero Crater. This is the area the rover has been exploring since it touched down more than two years ago in hopes of looking for signs of ancient microbial life.
“These refer to a high-energy river that carries and carries a lot of debris. The stronger the water flow, the easier it is to move large pieces of material. It was a pleasure to look at rocks on another planet and see such familiar processes, Libby Ives, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement to NASA.
For two years, Perseverance examined the top of an 820-foot-tall, 250-meter-high mound of sedimentary rock that contained curved layers reminiscent of the flow of water. A location inside the curved module, dubbed “Sprinkle Haven,” is captured in one of the new Mastcam-Z mosaics.
