Latest news with #ZhurongMars
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Mars Rover Discovers What Appear to Be Ancient Beaches Where Waves Crashed From Martian Ocean
China's Zhurong Mars rover, which has been exploring the planet's arid surface since May 2021, has made a fascinating discovery: ancient, "vacation-style" beaches. 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


Axios
25-02-2025
- Science
- Axios
Mars once featured "vacation-style" beaches, study suggests
Mars once featured sun-soaked, sandy beaches with gentle, lapping waves from an ancient ocean, a new study suggests. Why it matters: The research marks the "clearest evidence yet" that the Red Planet once contained a major body of water and a more livable environment for life, per a statement from study co-author Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of geology at Pennsylvania State University. "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," Cardenas said. Driving the news: A team of Chinese and U.S. researchers identified hidden layers of rock under Mars' surface that strongly suggested the presence of a past northern ocean while analyzing data from the China's Zhurong Mars rover, according to the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Zhurong sent back data in 2021 while searching for signs of ancient water or ice after landing in an area known as Utopia Planitia. What they found: The scientists discovered "extensive dipping deposits in the subsurface" of this area, the study notes. Analysis of radar data indicated "foreshore deposits" similar to beaches on Earth with sediments. The research indicates the presence of "coastal sedimentary deposits formed by ancient ocean waves and possibly composed of sand and pebble gravels transported by tidal currents," per the study. Cardenas said this "stood out to us immediately because it suggests there were waves, which means there was a dynamic interface of air and water." Contributing author Michael Manga, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of earth and planetary science, said in a statement the reseach showed "classic indications of sloping, sandy beaches lining an ocean." Zoom in: Manga said the "sand that's on those beaches is coming in from the rivers, and then it's being transported by currents in the ocean and continually being transported up and down the beaches by the waves coming and going up and down the beach." He noted that Mars has many features that resemble ancient rivers. "So there must have been rivers transporting sediment to the ocean, though there's nothing in the immediate vicinity that would have disturbed these beach deposits," Manga added. The bottom line, via Cardenas: "We're finding places on Mars that used to look like ancient beaches and ancient river deltas. "We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand — a proper, vacation-style beach." Between the lines: Aaron Cavosie, a planetary scientist at Curtin University in Australia, said the find marked an "extraordinary contribution" to research into water on the Red Planet, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "There is abundant evidence from orbital images and mineral mapping that surface water was present during the Noachian period from 4.1–3.7 billion years ago," added Cavosie, who was not involved with the study. "Its origin and duration continue to be debated." Go deeper: Setting up the next scientific era on Mars
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Alien life might have flourished in ‘vacation-style beaches' on Mars, scientists say
Mars was once home not only to an ocean but "vacation-style" beaches with sun, sand and softly lapping waves, new findings suggest. Researchers now believe that the planet was covered in a huge ocean to its north – as well as a more habitable environment for life. 'We're finding places on Mars that used to look like ancient beaches and ancient river deltas,' said Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of geology at Penn State and co-author on the new study. 'We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand — a proper, vacation-style beach.' That is thanks to data taken from the Zhurong Mars rover, which was sent to the red planet by China and landed in 2021. That rover carried a radar that was able to explore the area underneath the surface of Mars. Using low- and high-frequency radar, it could see buried rock formations. Researchers have used that data to find hidden layers of rock under the surface of Mars that suggest it once had an ocean. The radar data showed a similar layered structure to that found on beaches on Earth, where there are deposits that slope towards the ocean and are made when sediments are carried by waves into a body of water. '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. '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 work suggests that Mars was generally once much wetter than it is today. Researchers believe that as well as its large ocean it was generally warm and wet for maybe tens of millions of years, during which it may have supported alien life. 'The capabilities of the Zhurong rover have allowed us to understand the geologic history of the planet in an entirely new way,' said Michael Manga, professor of Earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a corresponding author on the paper. 'Its ground-penetrating radar gives us a view of the subsurface of the planet, which allows us to do geology that we could have never done before. All these incredible advancements in technology have made it possible to do basic science that is revealing a trove of new information about Mars.'
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
New evidence suggests Mars once had ‘vacation-style beaches'
Present-day Mars is a barren and inhospitable planet, but it may have once had sandy beaches and tranquil ocean vistas. According to findings published on February 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Red Planet may have remained a vacation-worthy destination for tens of millions of years—while also providing the proper conditions to support microbial life. The evidence comes from data collected by China's Zhurong Mars rover, which landed in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars in 2021. Unlike other rovers traversing the planet, Zhurong arrived with high- and low-frequency radar systems that allow it to conduct ground-penetrating scans of the Martian subsurface. After reviewing the rover's data, an international team, including researchers at Penn State, believe that they have spotted layered structures with remarkable similarities to what can be found all over Earth. 'We're finding places on Mars that used to look like ancient beaches and ancient river deltas,' Benjamin Cardenas, a Penn State assistant professor of geology and study co-author, said in an accompanying statement. 'We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand—a proper, vacation-style beach.' Cardenas and colleagues are particularly focused on what appears to be ancient, long-buried 'foreshore deposits.' A common feature on shorelines across Earth, foreshore deposits are downward sloping geological formations created by tides and waves as they gradually wash sediment into a large body of water. 'This stood out to us immediately because it suggests there were waves, which means there was a dynamic interface of air and water,' Cardenas added. According to the authors, both the Martian foreshore deposit angles and sediment thicknesses fall right within the range of those on Earth. Further analysis also indicated these foreshore deposits on Mars weren't the result of river flows, volcanic activity, or wind—leaving oceanic coasts the most likely explanation. If true, this further supports the hypothesis that an ocean once covered a substantial portion of the northern pole of Mars. A body of water big enough to generate waves and tides also raises the chances of the planet supporting life. '[I]t suggests… there was a dynamic interface of air and water,' Cardenas said. '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.' These warm, wet conditions suitable for life possibly spanned tens of millions of years on Mars, presenting ample time for shorelines to shift while fostering the development of organisms. 'We tend to think about Mars as just a static snapshot of a planet, but it was evolving,' explained Cardenas.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
New evidence suggests Mars once had ‘vacation-style beaches'
Present-day Mars is a barren and inhospitable planet, but it may have once had sandy beaches and tranquil ocean vistas. According to findings published on February 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Red Planet may have remained a vacation-worthy destination for tens of millions of years—while also providing the proper conditions to support microbial life. The evidence comes from data collected by China's Zhurong Mars rover, which landed in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars in 2021. Unlike other rovers traversing the planet, Zhurong arrived with high- and low-frequency radar systems that allow it to conduct ground-penetrating scans of the Martian subsurface. After reviewing the rover's data, an international team, including researchers at Penn State, believe that they have spotted layered structures with remarkable similarities to what can be found all over Earth. 'We're finding places on Mars that used to look like ancient beaches and ancient river deltas,' Benjamin Cardenas, a Penn State assistant professor of geology and study co-author, said in an accompanying statement. 'We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand—a proper, vacation-style beach.' Cardenas and colleagues are particularly focused on what appears to be ancient, long-buried 'foreshore deposits.' A common feature on shorelines across Earth, foreshore deposits are downward sloping geological formations created by tides and waves as they gradually wash sediment into a large body of water. 'This stood out to us immediately because it suggests there were waves, which means there was a dynamic interface of air and water,' Cardenas added. According to the authors, both the Martian foreshore deposit angles and sediment thicknesses fall right within the range of those on Earth. Further analysis also indicated these foreshore deposits on Mars weren't the result of river flows, volcanic activity, or wind—leaving oceanic coasts the most likely explanation. If true, this further supports the hypothesis that an ocean once covered a substantial portion of the northern pole of Mars. A body of water big enough to generate waves and tides also raises the chances of the planet supporting life. '[I]t suggests… there was a dynamic interface of air and water,' Cardenas said. '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.' These warm, wet conditions suitable for life possibly spanned tens of millions of years on Mars, presenting ample time for shorelines to shift while fostering the development of organisms. 'We tend to think about Mars as just a static snapshot of a planet, but it was evolving,' explained Cardenas.