NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) launched in 2005 has helped scientists decide that Mars had floor water as not too long ago as 2 billion years in the past. Previous research had concluded that water on Mars evaporated about 3 billion years in the past and this new discover reduces that timeline considerably.
The findings have been revealed final month in AGU Advances. The group made the invention by finding out chloride salt deposits that have been left behind as ice water evaporated. The salt deposits additionally present the primary mineral proof for the presence of liquid water on Mars.
Water flowed on Mars longer than beforehand thought… by a billion years! 😮 The findings come from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter information that signifies Martian floor water left behind salt minerals as not too long ago as 2 billion years in the past. https://t.co/7heAUxxmsT pic.twitter.com/Ho6HefSV88
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) January 26, 2022
The group used information from an instrument named Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on the MRO spacecraft. They additionally used the Context Camera and High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) coloration digicam onboard the spacecraft to map the extent of chloride salts throughout Mars’ southern hemisphere.
They write that the salts have been present in depressions that have been as soon as dwelling to shallow ponds.
“What is amazing is that after more than a decade of providing high-resolution image, stereo, and infrared data, MRO has driven new discoveries about the nature and timing of these river-connected ancient salt ponds,” mentioned corresponding creator Bethany L. Ehlmann in a launch.
“Part of the value of MRO is that our view of the planet keeps getting more detailed over time,” mentioned Leslie Tamppari, the mission’s deputy challenge scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The more of the planet we map with our instruments, the better we can understand its history.”
