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By analyzing data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover, scientists found that floods of unimaginable magnitude once passed through Gale Crater on Mars’ equator some four billion years ago.
The discovery, published in Scientific Reports, alludes to the possibility that life may have existed on the Red Planet.
The furious mega flood – likely caused by the heat of a meteor impact, which released the ice stored on the Martian surface – created giant ripples that are telltale geological structures familiar to scientists on Earth.
“We identified megafloods for the first time using detailed sedimentological data observed by the Curiosity rover,” said co-author Alberto Fairen, a visiting astrobiologist at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
“The deposits left by the megafloods had not previously been identified with the data from the orbiter.”
As in the case of the Earth, geological features, including the work of water and wind, have been frozen in time on Mars for about four billion years. These features convey processes that have shaped the surface of both planets in the past.
This case includes the occurrence of gigantic wave-shaped features in the sedimentary layers of the Gale crater, often called “megaripples” or antidunes that are about 30 feet tall and spaced about 450 feet apart, according to the lead author. by Ezat Heydari, Professor of Physics at Jackson State University in Mississippi, United States.
Antidunes are indicative of megafloods flowing at the bottom of Mars’ Gale crater about four billion years ago, which are identical to features formed by the melting of ice on Earth about two million years ago, Heydari said.
The most likely cause of the flooding of Mars was the melting of the ice caused by the heat generated by a large impact, which released carbon dioxide and methane from the planet’s frozen reservoirs.
Water vapor and gas release combined to produce a brief period of warm, humid conditions on the red planet.
The condensation formed clouds of water vapor, which in turn created torrential rains, possibly all over the planet.
The science team of the Curiosity rover has already established that Gale Crater once had persistent lakes and streams in the ancient past.
These long-lived bodies of water are good indicators that the crater, as well as Mount Sharp within it, were capable of supporting microbial life.
“Early Mars was an extremely active planet from a geologic point of view,” Fairen said.
“The planet had the necessary conditions to support the presence of liquid water on the surface and on Earth, where there is water, there is life.
“So at the beginning of Mars it was a habitable planet,” he said.
“Was it inhabited? That’s a question the next Perseverance rover … will help answer.”
Perseverance, launched on July 30, is expected to reach Mars on February 18, 2021.
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