Mars Rover Discovers What Appear to Be Ancient Beaches Where Waves Crashed From Martian Ocean
The findings, detailed in a new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer the "clearest evidence yet" that Mars once contained huge bodies of water — and therefore could've been amenable to life.
"We're finding places on Mars that used to look like ancient beaches and ancient river deltas," said Penn State assistant professor of geology and coauthor Benjamin Cardenas in a statement. "We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand — a proper, vacation-style beach."
The research adds to a growing body of evidence that the Red Planet was once dominated by water, much like Earth today. Cardenas and his collaborators have previously found evidence of lush streams of water carving channels and craters into the planet's surface millions of years ago.
Now it sounds like Mars was likely home to massive oceans as well, which would be "potentially habitable environments," as coauthor and University of California, Berkeley geophysicist Michael Manga told ScienceAlert.
"Hence the 'follow the water' theme of Mars exploration," he told the outlet. "Most exciting to me was the chance to look beneath the surface at a place we think there could have been an ocean and to see what we think are beach deposits."
The Chinese National Space Administration's Zhurong rover has been exploring a massive impact basin, roughly 2,100 miles in diameter and called Utopia Planitia, looking for signs of ancient water or ice. Its ground-penetrating radar allows it to peek below the planet's surface to identify rock formations and sedimentary deposits.
Cardenas and his colleagues examined this data, discovering similar "foreshore deposits" with a downward slope closely resembling Earth's beaches.
"This stood out to us immediately because it suggests there were waves, which means there was a dynamic interface of air and water," Cardenas said in the statement. "When we look back at where the earliest life on Earth developed, it was in the interaction between oceans and land, so this is painting a picture of ancient habitable environments, capable of harboring conditions friendly toward microbial life."
"The structures don't look like sand dunes," Manga told ScienceAlert. "They don't look like an impact crater. They don't look like lava flows. That's when we started thinking about oceans."
Apart from supporting the hypothesis that Mars' northern hemisphere and its north pole were once covered in a massive ocean, the findings paint a more nuanced picture of how these systems appear to have changed over time.
"We tend to think about Mars as just a static snapshot of a planet, but it was evolving," Cardenas explained. "Rivers were flowing, sediment was moving, and land was being built and eroded. This type of sedimentary geology can tell us what the landscape looked like, how they evolved, and, importantly, help us identify where we would want to look for past life."
It's a particularly promising area, they say, even compared to other water-rich locations.
"Shorelines are great locations to look for evidence of past life," Manga told ScienceAlert. "It's thought that the earliest life on Earth began at locations like this, near the interface of air and shallow water."
More on Mars: It Kinda Sounds Like NASA Is Gutting Its Plans for a Moon Landing
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists tout potential weight loss advance using gene technology
There could be new hope for people aiming to fight obesity following a research breakthrough identifying certain microproteins that store fat. In findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the US, the team from the California-based Salk Institute for Biological Studies said that the microproteins "could potentially serve as drug targets to treat obesity and other metabolic disorders." The findings could prove particularly useful for people who struggle with other treatments such as lifestyle changes, bariatric surgery or courses of drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy. "The obesity rate has more than doubled in the last 30 years, affecting more than one billion people worldwide," the Salk Institute warned, reminding that being overweight is linked to "other metabolic disorders" such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and cancers. Microproteins, according to the team, are "an understudied class of molecules found throughout the body that play roles in both health and disease." The team believes the findings are noteworthy because they entailed the use of CRISPR gene editing to screen thousands of fat cell genes to try to find genes "that likely code for microproteins that regulate either fat cell proliferation or lipid accumulation." "We wanted to know if there was anything we had been missing in all these years of research into the body's metabolic processes," says Salk's Victor Pai. Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
The next ‘Big One' on the San Andreas fault might not be the earthquake we expect, researchers say
What could the next mega-earthquake on California's notorious San Andreas fault look like? Would it be a repeat of 1857, when an earthquake estimated at magnitude 7.7 to 7.9 ruptured the fault from Monterey County all the way through Los Angeles County? Would it be more akin to the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which began just offshore of the city and ruptured in two directions, toward Humboldt County and Santa Cruz County? Don't bet on an identical sequel. That's the implication of a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The report, coauthored by scientists at Caltech in Pasadena, studied a massive earthquake that ruptured in the southeast Asian country of Myanmar on March 28 — on a fault known for being eerily similar to the San Andreas. The earthquake ended up rupturing a much longer section of the fault than scientists expected, given the seismology of the region. The implications of this study are that 'earthquakes never come back exactly the same way,' Solene L. Antoine, a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech and the study's lead author, said in an interview. 'It came as a surprise that you could get such a long rupture,' said Jean-Philippe Avouac, a coauthor of the study and a professor of geology and mechanical and civil engineering at Caltech. March's Mandalay earthquake devastated Myanmar, killing at least 3,791 people and an additional 63 people in Thailand. High-rise buildings were damaged as far away as Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and homes were damaged in the Ruili area of China. Damage was estimated at $1.9 billion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was the most powerful earthquake in Myanmar in at least 79 years. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake ruptured an astonishing 317 miles of the Sagaing fault, a finding based on Antoine's analysis of satellite data showing earth movement after the quake. That's the longest seismic rupture ever documented on a continent. By comparison, California's 1906 earthquake ruptured 296 miles of the San Andreas fault; and the 1857 earthquake, 225 miles. Longer seismic ruptures have been found only on subduction megathrusts deep underneath the ocean. What's clear from the study is that while California's next 'Big One' may share some characteristics of previously documented devastating quakes, it's unlikely to be an exact replay. As the recent experience in Myanmar shows, even well-documented faults can behave in surprising ways. The next step is to develop a model simulating earthquakes over many millennia for the San Andreas fault, which the authors plan to do in the future. But the San Andreas fault 'is far more complex,' Avouac said. 'It's not going to come soon, because it's quite a heavy calculation.' Still, such simulations would provide a model of 'all possible scenarios so that we have a better view of the range of possible ruptures that could happen.' For instance, maybe the San Andreas fault will rupture in smaller, separate earthquakes, Avouac said. Or it could be a much larger earthquake — rupturing the fault not just from Monterey to Los Angeles counties, but perhaps all the way into San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties, which would possibly exceed magnitude 8. Such a quake would be the largest simultaneous disaster in modern California history, with huge swaths of the state wracked by powerful seismic shaking all at once. By comparison, the 1994 Northridge earthquake's footprint was relatively constrained, severely affecting only a portion of Los Angeles County, especially the San Fernando Valley — related to its relatively smaller magnitude of 6.7. But while modeling previous activity on the San Andreas fault will provide a glimpse into the wide range of possible outcomes, it will not pinpoint precisely when the next great quake will strike. 'We can't just expect the exact same thing to happen,' Antoine said. 'It is a matter of just showing what scenarios are possible, the diversity of scenarios and seeing what are the consequences of each of those scenarios.' Sometimes, Avouac said, 'it's quiet for a long time, nothing happens ... stress is building up, the fault is locked for a long time, nothing happens, and then, boom, you have a large earthquake.' 'And then you have other periods during which you have a lot of [seismic] activity, but these earthquakes are all smaller,' Avouac said. But 'smaller' earthquakes, in the minds of researchers, are still big to the layperson. In the study's simulations, there are periods where earthquakes around magnitude 7.7 are common. In other periods, earthquakes max out at magnitude 7.5 or so, but are more frequent. The entire length of the Sagaing fault — including areas that didn't rupture in the March earthquake — is 750 miles, north to south, from the Himalayas to the Andaman Sea, and helps accommodate the northward push of the Indian tectonic plate. The fact that 317 miles of the Sagaing fault ruptured in March was surprising to scientists. Only about 170 miles had been quiet seismically for more than a century, having last ruptured in 1839. Scientists call these 'seismic gaps' — particular areas of a fault that haven't recently ruptured. Generally, scientists would've expected only this long-dormant 170-mile piece of the Sagaing fault to rupture, Avouac said, but not more recently ruptured sections. That includes a 100-mile stretch that ruptured in large earthquakes in 1929 and 1930, and a 50-mile stretch that went off in a pair of quakes in 1946 and 1956. Instead, even those fault segments ruptured in the big March earthquake. So what gives? A possible explanation is the Sagaing fault's extraordinary smoothness. 'And people have observed that when the fault is very smooth, the rupture ... tends to propagate at a velocity' so fast that it results in an 'extremely elongated rupture,' Avouac said. The study also published the results of a computer model simulation looking at how earthquakes might rupture along sections of the entire 750-mile long Sagaing fault. The code, developed by study coauthor Kyungjae Im of Caltech, suggests that over a hypothetical 1,400-year period, there would be no repeatable patterns. In other words, earthquakes didn't seem to re-occur like clockwork, rupturing the same stretch of fault in a repeatable, predictable pattern. 'There is complexity here. And this is because each time you have an earthquake, it redistributes the stress on the fault, which is going to influence the next earthquake,' Avouac said. 'There's a self-induced complexity in the process, and that leads to a bit of randomness.' There is one certainty, which is bound to disappoint anyone who shares the hope that a 'Big One' simply won't ever strike California again. 'There will be an earthquake at some point,' Antoine said. 'If there is stress building up on the fault, the fault won't hold forever.' Further research and observations are essential to refine models of future possible earthquakes, including from the Sentinel satellites, which are operated by the European Space Agency, the authors said. The other coauthors of the study are Rajani Shrestha and Chris Milliner of Caltech; Chris Rollins of Earth Sciences New Zealand; Kang Wang of the Washington-based EarthScope Consortium; and Kejie Chen of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Yahoo
An Astrophysicist Proposes We Send a Spacecraft to Visit a Black Hole
Black holes are some of the most mysterious objects in the Universe – a reputation not helped by the difficulty of studying them. Because these ultra-dense objects emit no light we can detect, we have to study them based on the effect they have on the space around them, from large distances across space-time. But there could be another way to get the skinny on these cosmic heavyweights. "I was looking for some completely new way to study black holes," astrophysicist Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University in China told ScienceAlert, "and I realized that an interstellar mission to the closest black hole is not unrealistic – but nobody had ever proposed it." Related: Physicists Simulated a Black Hole in The Lab, And Then It Began to Glow Black holes generate the strongest gravitational fields in the Universe, so strong that not even light is fast enough to achieve escape velocity from its powerful hold. Although we know a fair bit about how they behave, the measure of what we don't know about them is far greater than what we do. Additionally, the black hole gravitational regime would be one of the best in the Universe for testing general relativity, offering extreme conditions not found anywhere else that would really push the theory to its absolute limits. A probe orbiting a black hole would be able to perform tests, and take measurements of the black hole, that we can't do from Earth. "We do not know the structure of a black hole, namely of the region inside the event horizon. General relativity makes clear predictions, but some of them are certainly incorrect," Bambi said. "Black holes are therefore ideal laboratories to find possible deviations from the predictions of general relativity." In his proposal, Bambi lays out the physical feasibility of a black hole exploration mission, focusing on the two first hurdles that would need to be addressed: firstly, the identification of a suitable target; and secondly, the technology. To be clear, this is long-term planning. The technology we have now is not ready for such a mission, and the distances involved would mean a travel time of decades. But each journey begins with a single step – and without that step, the journey cannot take place. Finding a suitable black hole to visit is the first major hurdle. Currently, the closest known black hole to Earth resides at a distance of about 1,565 light-years. That's too far, really. There could, however, be black holes much closer. If they're just hanging out in space, not doing anything, black holes are hard to spot, but astronomers are getting better at finding them based on the way their gravitational field warps the space-time around them. Finding such a black hole nearby within the next decade or so isn't outside the realm of possibility. "I think we just need to be 'lucky' and have a black hole within 20 to 25 light-years. This is not under our control, of course. If there is a black hole within 20 to 25 light-years of the Solar System, we can develop the technology for such a mission," Bambi explained. "If the black hole is not within 20 to 25 light-years, but still within 40 to 50 light-years, the technological requirements are more challenging. If the black hole is at more than 40 to 50 light-years, I am afraid we have to give up." The next step would be how to get there. This would require the development of a craft that can travel at speeds up to a third of the speed of light, powered initially by Earth-based lasers, then by solar (or stellar) power as it makes its way to its destination – a journey of 70 years or so. "Two or more probes orbiting around the black hole would be the best option," Bambi said. "Generally speaking, we need that the probe gets as close as possible to the black hole, then it separates into a main probe (mothership) and many small probes. If these probes can communicate with each other through the exchange of electromagnetic signals, we can determine their exact trajectories around the black hole and how electromagnetic signals propagate around the black hole." Any data sent from the probe would then travel at light-speed to get back to Earth; at a distance of 20 light-years, that would mean an additional 20 years before data comes in, for a total mission duration of around a century or so. That's a long time, but it's worth thinking about now, even before a nearby black hole has been found, because such a mission would require a great deal of planning. And the results would absolutely be worth it, Bambi said. "I would hope to observe deviations from the predictions of general relativity and some clues to develop a theory beyond general relativity," he told ScienceAlert. In a statement, he adds, "It may sound really crazy, and in a sense closer to science fiction. But people said we'd never detect gravitational waves because they're too weak. We did – 100 years later. People thought we'd never observe the shadows of black holes. Now, 50 years later, we have images of two." The proposal has been published in iScience. Related News You're More Likely to Die From an Asteroid Than Rabies, Scientists Find Scientists Have Brewed a 'Super Alcohol' Theorized to Exist in Deep Space Earth Spun Faster Today. Here's How We Know. Solve the daily Crossword
