Martian river mighty, deep and with strong current

The Perseverance robot has discovered traces of an ancient Martian river much larger and more impetuous than previously thought possible. Judging from this finding, Mars not only had liquid water on its surface but was also abundant and highly dynamic.

The river was part of a network of watercourses that emptied into Jezero Crater, the area the robotic rover has been exploring since landing on Mars more than two years ago.

Knowing these ancient aquatic sites well enough will help in the search for signs of ancient microbial life that may have been preserved in the Martian subsoil.

Perseverance is exploring the upper part of a fan-shaped sedimentary rock accumulation 250 meters high and with curved layers that suggest the past presence of moving water. Questions have long existed as to whether that water flowed in relatively shallow streams (more like those that once existed and left their imprints in the Gale Crater grounds explored by NASA’s robotic rover Curiosity) or in a deeper river system. powerful.

Crafted from hundreds of images captured by Perseverance, two new photo mosaics suggest the latter, revealing an important clue: coarse sediment grains and boulders.

Everything indicates that these bands of stones were formed by a very fast, mighty and deep river, the first evidence of this type that has been found on Mars. The image was captured in sections by the Perseverance robotic rover using its Mastcam-Z camera. (Photo: NASA JPL/Caltech/ASU/MSSS)

“This indicates that it was a very forceful river, carrying a lot of debris. The more powerful a flow of water is, the more easily it is able to move larger chunks of material,” explains Libby Ives of the Propulsion Laboratory at NASA jet in the United States, where the Perseverance mission control center is located. With experience studying terrestrial rivers, Ives has spent the last six months analyzing images of the Red Planet’s surface.

Years ago, a series of curved bands of layered rock were glimpsed within Jezero Crater. These layers could be seen from space, but they have finally been seen up close and in great detail, thanks to Perseverance, which has finally allowed us to determine their nature. (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)