Latest news with #GuangzhouUniversity
The Independent
25-02-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Scientists make three billion-year-old discovery buried on Mars
In the 1970s, images from the NASA Mariner 9 orbiter revealed water-sculpted surfaces on Mars. This settled the once-controversial question of whether water ever rippled over the red planet. Since then, more and more evidence has emerged that water once played a large role on our planetary neighbour. For example, Martian meteorites record evidence for water back to 4.5 billion years ago. On the young side of the timescale, impact craters formed over the past few years show the presence of ice under the surface today. Today the hot topics focus on when water appeared, how much was there, and how long it lasted. Perhaps the most burning of all Mars water-related topics nowadays is: were there ever oceans? A new study published in PNAS has made quite a splash. The study involved a team of Chinese and American scientists led by Jianhui Li from Guangzhou University in China, and was based on work done by the China National Space Administration's Mars rover Zhurong. Data from Zhurong provide an unprecedented look into rocks buried near a proposed shoreline billions of years old. The researchers claim to have found beach deposits from an ancient Martian ocean. Blue water on a red planet Rovers exploring Mars study many aspects of the planet, including the geology, soil and atmosphere. They're often looking for any evidence of water. That's in part because water is a vital factor for determining if Mars ever supported life. Sedimentary rocks are often a particular focus of investigations, because they can contain evidence of water – and therefore life – on Mars. For example, the NASA Perseverance rover is currently searching for life in a delta deposit. Deltas are triangular regions often found where rivers flow into larger bodies of water, depositing large amounts of sediment. Examples on Earth include the Mississippi delta in the United States and the Nile delta in Egypt. The delta the Perseverance rover is exploring is located within the roughly 45km wide Jezero impact crater, believed to be the site of an ancient lake. Zhurong had its sights set on a very different body of water – the vestiges of an ancient ocean located in the northern hemisphere of Mars. The god of fire The Zhurong rover is named after a mythical god of fire. It was launched by the Chinese National Space Administration in 2020 and was active on Mars from 2021 to 2022. Zhurong landed within Utopia Planitia, a vast expanse and the largest impact basin on Mars which stretches some 3,300km in diameter. Zhurong is investigating an area near a series of ridges – described as paleoshorelines – that extend for thousands of kilometres across Mars. The paleoshorelines have previously been interpreted as the remnants of a global ocean that encircled the northern third of Mars. However, there are differing views among scientists about this, and more observations are needed. On Earth, the geologic record of oceans is distinctive. Modern oceans are only a few hundreds of millions of years old. Yet the global rock record is riddled with deposits made by many older oceans, some several billions of years old. What lies beneath To determine if rocks in Utopia Planitia are consistent with having been deposited by an ocean, the rover collected data along a 1.3km measured line known as a transect at the margin of the basin. The transect was oriented perpendicular to the paleoshoreline. The goal was to work out what rock types are there, and what story they tell. The Zhurong rover used a technique called ground penetrating radar, which probed down to 100 metres below the surface. The data revealed many characteristics of the buried rocks, including their orientation. Rocks imaged along the transect contained many reflective layers that are visible by ground penetrating radar down to at least 30 metres. All the layers also dip shallowly into the basin, away from the paleoshoreline. This geometry exactly reflects how sediments are deposited into oceans on Earth. The ground penetrating radar also measured how much the rocks are affected by an electrical field. The results showed the rocks are more likely to be sedimentary and are not volcanic flows, which can also form layers. The study compared Zhurong data gathered from Utopia Planitia with ground penetrating radar data for different sedimentary environments on Earth. The result of the comparison is clear – the rocks Zhurong imaged are a match for coastal sediments deposited along the margin of an ocean. Zhurong found a beach. A wet Mars The Noachian period of Martian history, from 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago, is the poster child for a wet Mars. There is abundant evidence from orbital images of valley networks and mineral maps that the surface of Noachian Mars had surface water. However, there is less evidence for surface water during the Hesperian period, from 3.7 to 3 billion years ago. Stunning orbital images of large outflow channels in Hesperian land forms, including an area of canyons known as Kasei Valles, are believed to have formed from catastrophic releases of ground water, rather than standing water. From this view, Mars appears to have cooled down and dried up by Hesperian time. However, the Zhurong rover findings of coastal deposits formed in an ocean may indicate that surface water was stable on Mars longer than previously recognised. It may have lasted into the Late Hesperian period. This may mean that habitable environments, around an ocean, extended to more recent times.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Chinese Rover Reveals Mars Used To Have Some Beautiful Beaches
Crowds driving you nuts? Don't have a wave pool nearby? Perhaps an interplanetary surf trip is the call? A Chinese rover on Mars has discovered what appears to be sandy beaches on the Red Planet. Based on evidence beamed back to Earth from the Zhurong rover, scientists speculate that there were once sandy beaches along the shoreline of an extinct ocean called Deuteronilus. But don't pack your board bag and spacesuit just yet. You're going to have to go back in time approximately 3.5 to 4 billion years. It's believed that in the very distant past Mars had a more hospitable atmosphere with warmer temperatures that allowed for liquid water on the surface. Scientists point to this a a recipe for life. Surfers point to it as a recipe for surf. Heck, there could have even been Martian locals, swaying palm trees and some alien version of Great White Sharks, who knows?! The rover, which roamed northern Mars from 2021 to 2022, used ground-penetrating radar imaging technology to take a peak under the surface of the planet, and what it found looks a lot like beaches similar to those found on Earth. It's believed that billions of years ago rivers fed into the Martian sea, creating the same kind of coastal geography and topography found here - sand dunes, slopes leading to a shoreline, etc. It's believe there was also likely some form of wave action thanks to tides and winds. "The Martian surface has changed dramatically over 3.5 billion years, but by using ground-penetrating radar we found direct evidence of coastal deposits that weren't visible from the surface," Hai Liu, a planetary scientist at Guangzhou University and member of the Chinese team that worked on the mission, said in a news report. "The beaches would have been formed by similar processes to those on Earth - waves and tides," Liu adds. Could an interstellar real estate arms race between China and the U.S. be that far off? China continues to not only explore the deepest reaches of our solar system, but has also been applying a government-funded, full-court press to break into surfing. They sent their first athlete to the Olympics in Tahiti last summer, and they've been entertaining a takeover of wave-rich Taiwan for a minute now. But the President of the United States has prioritized landing humans on Mars before his term is up in 2028. Along with his other cosmic ideas, he sees it as imperative that the U.S. 'pursue our manifest destiny into the stars." All of this begs the question, if a wave breaks on Mars and nobody's there to ride it, did it ever even break at all?
The Guardian
24-02-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Mars may once have had an ocean with sandy beaches, radar data suggests
Mars may once have been home to sandy beaches, new ground-penetrating radar data suggests. The radar data from China's Zhurong rover has revealed buried beneath the Martian surface evidence of what look like sandy beaches from the shoreline of a large ocean that may have existed long ago on the planet's northern plains. The findings are the latest evidence indicating the existence of this hypothesised ocean, called Deuteronilus, roughly 3.5 to 4bn years ago, a time when Mars – now cold and desolate – had a thicker atmosphere and warmer climate. Scientists say an ocean of liquid water on the Martian surface could have harboured living organisms, much like the primordial seas of early Earth. The rover, which operated from May 2021 to May 2022, travelled 1.2 miles (1.9 km) in an area that exhibits surface features suggestive of an ancient shoreline. Its ground-penetrating radar, which transmitted high-frequency radio waves into the ground that reflected off subsurface features, probed up to 80 metres beneath the surface. Between 10 and 35 metres underground, the radar images detected thick layers of material with properties similar to sand, all sloped in the same direction and at an angle similar to that of beaches on Earth just below the water where the sea meets the land. The researchers mapped these structures spanning three-quarters of a mile along the rover's path. 'The Martian surface has changed dramatically over 3.5bn years, but by using ground-penetrating radar we found direct evidence of coastal deposits that weren't visible from the surface,' said Hai Liu, a Guangzhou University planetary scientist and a member of the science team for China's Tianwen-1 mission that included the rover. On Earth, beach deposits of this size would have needed millions of years to form, the researchers said, suggesting that on Mars there was a large and long-lived body of water with wave action that distributed sediments carried into it by rivers flowing from nearby highlands. 'The beaches would have been formed by similar processes to those on Earth – waves and tides,' said Liu, one of the leaders of the study published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'Such oceans would have profoundly influenced Mars' climate, shaped its landscape and created environments potentially suitable for life to emerge and thrive.' 'Shorelines are great locations to look for evidence of past life,' said Michael Manga, a planetary scientist and study co-author from the University of California, Berkeley. 'It's thought that the earliest life on Earth began at locations like this, near the interface of air and shallow water.' The rover explored the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a large plain in the Martian northern hemisphere. The researchers ruled out other possible explanations for the structures Zhurong detected. 'A primary part of this work was testing these other hypotheses. Wind-blown dunes were considered, but there were a few issues. First, dunes tend to come in groups, and these groups produce characteristic patterns not present in these deposits,' said Benjamin Cardenas, a Penn State geoscientist and study co-author. 'We also considered ancient rivers, which exist in some nearby locations on Mars, but we rejected that hypothesis for similar reasons based on the patterns we saw in the deposits. And you don't typically get structures like this in lava flows, either. Beaches simply fit the observations the best.' Earth, Mars and the solar system's other planets were formed roughly 4.5bn years ago. That means Deuteronilus would have disappeared approximately 1bn years into Martian history, when the planet's climate changed dramatically. Scientists said some of the water may have been lost to space while large amounts may remain trapped underground. A study published last year based on seismic data obtained by Nasa's robotic InSight lander found that an immense reservoir of liquid water may reside deep under the Martian surface within fractured igneous rocks. For decades, scientists have used satellite images to trace Martian surface features resembling a shoreline. But any such evidence on the surface could have been erased or distorted by billions of years of wind erosion or other geological processes. That is not the case with the newly found structures, which were entombed over time under material deposited by dust storms, meteorite strikes or volcanism. 'These are beautifully preserved because they are still buried in the Martian subsurface,' Cardenas said.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Evidence of beaches from ancient Martian ocean detected by Chinese rover
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ground-penetrating radar data obtained by China's Zhurong rover has revealed buried beneath the Martian surface evidence of what look like sandy beaches from the shoreline of a large ocean that may have existed long ago on the northern plains of Mars. The findings are the latest evidence indicating the existence of this hypothesized ocean, called Deuteronilus, roughly 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, a time when Mars - now cold and desolate - possessed a thicker atmosphere and warmer climate. An ocean of liquid water on the Martian surface, according to scientists, potentially could have harbored living organisms, much like the primordial seas of early Earth. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. The rover, which operated from May 2021 to May 2022, journeyed about 1.2 miles (1.9 km) in an area that exhibits surface features suggestive of an ancient shoreline. Its ground-penetrating radar, which transmitted high-frequency radio waves into the ground that reflected off subsurface features, probed up to 80 meters (260 feet) beneath the surface. The radar images detected some 33-115 feet (10-35 meters) underground thick layers of material with properties similar to sand, all sloped in the same direction and at an angle similar to that of beaches on Earth just below the water where the sea meets the land. The researchers mapped these structures spanning three quarters of a mile (1.2 km) along the rover's path. "The Martian surface has changed dramatically over 3.5 billion years, but by using ground-penetrating radar we found direct evidence of coastal deposits that weren't visible from the surface," said Guangzhou University planetary scientist Hai Liu, a member of the science team for China's Tianwen-1 mission that included the rover. On Earth, beach deposits of this size would have needed millions of years to form, the researchers said, suggesting that on Mars there was a large and long-lived body of water with wave action that distributed sediments carried into it by rivers flowing from nearby highlands. "The beaches would have been formed by similar processes to those on Earth - waves and tides," said Liu, one of the leaders of the study published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Such oceans would have profoundly influenced Mars' climate, shaped its landscape and created environments potentially suitable for life to emerge and thrive." "Shorelines are great locations to look for evidence of past life," said planetary scientist and study co-author Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley. "It's thought that the earliest life on Earth began at locations like this, near the interface of air and shallow water." The rover explored in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a large plain in the Martian northern hemisphere. The researchers ruled out other possible explanations for the structures Zhurong detected. "A primary part of this work was testing these other hypotheses. Wind-blown dunes were considered, but there were a few issues. First, dunes tend to come in groups, and these groups produce characteristic patterns not present in these deposits," Penn State geoscientist and study co-author Benjamin Cardenas said. "We also considered ancient rivers, which exist in some nearby locations on Mars, but we rejected that hypothesis for similar reasons based on the patterns we saw in the deposits. And you don't typically get structures like this in lava flows, either. Beaches simply fit the observations the best," Cardenas said. Earth, Mars and the solar system's other planets formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago. That means Deuteronilus would have disappeared approximately a billion years into Martian history, when the planet's climate changed dramatically. Scientists said some of the water may have been lost to space while large amounts may remain trapped underground. A study published last year based on seismic data obtained by NASA's robotic InSight lander found that an immense reservoir of liquid water may reside deep under the Martian surface within fractured igneous rocks. For decades, scientists have used satellite images to trace Martian surface features resembling a shoreline. But any such evidence on the surface could have been erased or distorted by billions of years of wind erosion or other geological processes. That is not the case with the newly found structures, which were entombed over time under material deposited by dust storms, meteorite strikes or volcanism. "These are beautifully preserved because they are still buried in the Martian subsurface," Cardenas said.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Evidence of beaches from ancient Martian ocean detected by Chinese rover
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ground-penetrating radar data obtained by China's Zhurong rover has revealed buried beneath the Martian surface evidence of what look like sandy beaches from the shoreline of a large ocean that may have existed long ago on the northern plains of Mars. The findings are the latest evidence indicating the existence of this hypothesized ocean, called Deuteronilus, roughly 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, a time when Mars - now cold and desolate - possessed a thicker atmosphere and warmer climate. An ocean of liquid water on the Martian surface, according to scientists, potentially could have harbored living organisms, much like the primordial seas of early Earth. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. The rover, which operated from May 2021 to May 2022, journeyed about 1.2 miles (1.9 km) in an area that exhibits surface features suggestive of an ancient shoreline. Its ground-penetrating radar, which transmitted high-frequency radio waves into the ground that reflected off subsurface features, probed up to 80 meters (260 feet) beneath the surface. The radar images detected some 33-115 feet (10-35 meters) underground thick layers of material with properties similar to sand, all sloped in the same direction and at an angle similar to that of beaches on Earth just below the water where the sea meets the land. The researchers mapped these structures spanning three quarters of a mile (1.2 km) along the rover's path. "The Martian surface has changed dramatically over 3.5 billion years, but by using ground-penetrating radar we found direct evidence of coastal deposits that weren't visible from the surface," said Guangzhou University planetary scientist Hai Liu, a member of the science team for China's Tianwen-1 mission that included the rover. On Earth, beach deposits of this size would have needed millions of years to form, the researchers said, suggesting that on Mars there was a large and long-lived body of water with wave action that distributed sediments carried into it by rivers flowing from nearby highlands. "The beaches would have been formed by similar processes to those on Earth - waves and tides," said Liu, one of the leaders of the study published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Such oceans would have profoundly influenced Mars' climate, shaped its landscape and created environments potentially suitable for life to emerge and thrive." "Shorelines are great locations to look for evidence of past life," said planetary scientist and study co-author Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley. "It's thought that the earliest life on Earth began at locations like this, near the interface of air and shallow water." The rover explored in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a large plain in the Martian northern hemisphere. The researchers ruled out other possible explanations for the structures Zhurong detected. "A primary part of this work was testing these other hypotheses. Wind-blown dunes were considered, but there were a few issues. First, dunes tend to come in groups, and these groups produce characteristic patterns not present in these deposits," Penn State geoscientist and study co-author Benjamin Cardenas said. "We also considered ancient rivers, which exist in some nearby locations on Mars, but we rejected that hypothesis for similar reasons based on the patterns we saw in the deposits. And you don't typically get structures like this in lava flows, either. Beaches simply fit the observations the best," Cardenas said. Earth, Mars and the solar system's other planets formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago. That means Deuteronilus would have disappeared approximately a billion years into Martian history, when the planet's climate changed dramatically. Scientists said some of the water may have been lost to space while large amounts may remain trapped underground. A study published last year based on seismic data obtained by NASA's robotic InSight lander found that an immense reservoir of liquid water may reside deep under the Martian surface within fractured igneous rocks. For decades, scientists have used satellite images to trace Martian surface features resembling a shoreline. But any such evidence on the surface could have been erased or distorted by billions of years of wind erosion or other geological processes. That is not the case with the newly found structures, which were entombed over time under material deposited by dust storms, meteorite strikes or volcanism. "These are beautifully preserved because they are still buried in the Martian subsurface," Cardenas said.
