NASA Confirms Hidden Signs Of Water In Mars' Jezero Crater

Scientists have found new clues that water once flowed on Mars, helping us better understand the planet's past. Using advanced tools, a rover has uncovered hidden signs beneath the surface that point to an ancient, water-rich environment, reported CGTN.

Using ground-penetrating radar, NASA's Perseverance rover has discovered subsurface traces of an ancient river delta on Mars-among the oldest evidence found to date-indicating that water once flowed across the planet's surface.

According to researchers, as the six-wheeled rover traversed 6.1 kilometers within Jezero Crater, it revealed geological structures lying approximately 35 meters beneath the ground. Located in Mars's northern hemisphere, this region is believed to have once been submerged in water, hosting an ancient lake basin in the distant past.

Perseverance identified layered sediments and eroded surfaces, pointing to a delta-like environment. A delta is a large, fan-shaped sedimentary deposit formed where a river flows into a larger body of water, such as a lake. Scientists estimate that this buried delta is approximately 3.7 to 4.2 billion years old. Given that Mars itself formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, this delta dates back to the planet's earliest epoch.

Researchers noted that this delta is even older than a similar surface structure located nearby, known as the Western Delta, which is estimated to be between 3.5 and 3.7 billion years old.

The rover's RIMFAX instrument transmits radar waves into the ground and records the signals that bounce back, thereby generating a three-dimensional image of the subsurface. These findings are based on the deepest data RIMFAX has collected to date-gathered over a period of approximately 250 Martian days between September 2023 and February 2024.

On Mars, the presence of water is often linked to the potential for past life; consequently, mounting evidence of the planet's wet history holds particular significance. While Mars is cold and arid today, it once possessed a denser atmosphere and a warmer climate-conditions that would have allowed liquid water to persist on its surface. According to Emily Cardarelli, based on data obtained from RIMFAX, she believes that Jezero Crater once possessed a water-rich environment capable of preserving biosignatures-a period predating the formation of the Western Delta.

Biosignatures are chemical or physical indicators that point to the existence of past or present life.

On Earth, river deltas are regions where sediments accumulate, creating an environment conducive to microbial life.

Last year, Chinese scientists reported that the Zhurong rover's ground-penetrating radar detected signals within Mars's northern plains, situated beneath sandy surfaces that resemble the shores of an ancient ocean.

Emily Cardarelli noted that, over time, numerous additional lines of evidence for the presence of liquid water on the Martian surface have emerged-spanning various rover landing sites, exploration zones, and orbital imagery. Collectively, these observations reveal channels where water may have once flowed, crater lakes where water accumulated, and delta-associated sediments that solidified into rock and now exist as buried remnants.

Cardarelli further remarked that Mars is a world of great diversity, and that every rover mission brings to light new insights regarding the planet's complex past and the early evolutionary history of this rocky world.