Analysis of data from the Curiosity rover suggests that many craters on Mars may have once been rivers.
Analysis of data from the Curiosity rover suggests that many craters on Mars may have once been rivers. These data confirm life on Mars.
“We’re finding evidence that Mars may have been a planet of rivers,” said Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of earth sciences at Penn State and lead author of a new paper making the news. “We see signs of rivers all over the planet.”
Data from the Curiosity rover show that many craters on Mars were once rivers
In a study published in Geophysical Research Letters , researchers used numerical models to simulate erosion on Mars over thousands of years. The researchers found that the typical crater shapes are most likely remnants of ancient riverbeds.
The study is the first to train a computer model on a combination of satellite data, images taken by the Curiosity rover and 3D scans of stratigraphy (layers of rock called strata deposited over millions of years). Beneath the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico, this analysis suggests a new interpretation for the formation of a typical Martian crater.
“We have everything to check on the Mars record,” Cárdenas says. “This analysis is not based solely on images taken by the Curiosity rover.”
Using data collected by the Curiosity rover at Gale Crater, the research team found signs of a river. Researchers say that these data show that there are signs of life on Mars due to the existence of these findings and they say that Mars was habitable in the period of time.
In designing their computer model, Cardenas and his team found a new use for 25-year-old scans of Earth’s stratigraphy. Cárdenas explains that scans of the subsea floor of the Gulf of Mexico collected by oil companies provide good information about Mars.