Space scientists have now revealed much more about the ancient climate of Mars. And it turns out that massive amounts of rain and melted snow once filled the lakebeds and river valleys just 3.5 billion years ago.
This news reinforces expectations that extraterrestrial life will one day be discovered on the near-Earth planet.
We’re looking to find out how much water there is and where it all went
Dr. Gaia Stucky de Quay
It is re-provided by the first time scientists have quantified the rain it once provided on the planet.
It conveniently matches NASA’s Mars 2020e Mars 2020e rover heading for Mars.
The firm area probe will land in February next year on one of the lake beds for this new investigation.
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The ancient weather and surface situations of Mars are an enigma for scientists.
For geologists, the lifestyle of riverbeds and basins of ancient lakes suggests a planet with precipitation or thaw.
However, weather model experts cannot account for the observed geology.
Dr. Gaia Stucky de Quay, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas and lead author, said: “This is incredibly vital because 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, Mars covered itself with water.
“There’s a lot of rain or melted snow to fill those canals and lakes.
“Now it’s absolutely dry. We’re looking to find out how much water there is and where it all went.”
Although scientists have discovered massive reserves of frozen water on Mars, no significant amount of liquid water has been found.
Experts now know that between four and 159 meters of rain will have to have fallen in a single episode to fill the Martian lakes.
In some cases, they will have enough water to overflow and drill the lake basins.
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Dr. Stucky de Quay added that these studies can perform Martian weather models, despite the wide variety of estimates.
She said: “It’s a massive cognitive dissonance. Climate models are suffering to account for this amount of liquid water at that time.
“It’s like possible liquid water, however, it happened. It is the lack of wisdom that our paintings seek to fill.”
NASA unveiled its Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover in June.
The probe will begin exploring the Jezero crater early next year, which one of the open lake beds used in the study.
According to co-author Tim Goudge, assistant professor at the University of Texas and chief clinical advocate at the landing site, the knowledge gathered through the crater may be only to determine the amount of water on Mars and whether there are symptoms of ancient extraterrestrial life.
He said: “The Gaia study takes basins of closed and open lakes identified in the past, but applies a new intelligent technique to restrict the amount of precipitation that those lakes have suffered.
“These effects not only refine our understanding of the ancient climate of Mars, but will also be an appropriate resource to put the effects of the March 2020 Perseverance Rover into a more global context.”