China’s Mars Rover Finds Indicators of Current Water in Sand Dunes

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Water could also be extra widespread and up to date on Mars than beforehand thought, based mostly on observations of Martian sand dunes by China’s rover.

The discovering highlights new, probably fertile areas within the hotter areas of Mars the place situations could be appropriate for all times to exist, although extra examine is required.

Friday’s information comes days after mission leaders acknowledged that the Zhurong rover has but to get up since going into hibernation for the Martian winter almost a yr in the past.

Its photo voltaic panels are seemingly coated with mud, choking off its energy supply and probably stopping the rover from working once more, mentioned Zhang Rongqiao, the mission’s chief designer.

Earlier than Zhurong fell silent, it noticed salt-rich dunes with cracks and crusts, which researchers mentioned seemingly have been blended with melting morning frost or snow as lately as a couple of hundred thousand years in the past.

Their estimated date vary for when the cracks and different dune options shaped in Mars’ Utopia Planitia, an unlimited plain within the northern hemisphere: someday after 1.4 million to 400,000 years in the past and even youthful.

Circumstances throughout that interval have been much like now on Mars, with rivers and lakes dried up and not flowing as they did billions of years earlier.

Learning the construction and chemical make-up of those dunes can present insights into “the potential of water exercise” throughout this era, the Beijing-based staff wrote in a examine revealed in Science Advances.

“We expect it might be a small quantity … not more than a movie of water on the floor,” co-author Xiaoguang Qin of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics mentioned in an e mail.

The rover didn’t instantly detect any water within the type of frost or ice. However Qin mentioned pc simulations and observations by different spacecraft at Mars point out that even these days at sure occasions of yr, situations might be appropriate for water to seem.

What’s notable concerning the examine is how younger the dunes are, mentioned planetary scientist Frederic Schmidt on the College of Paris-Saclay, who was not a part of the examine.

“That is clearly a brand new piece of science for this area,” he mentioned in an e mail.

Small pockets of water from thawing frost or snow, blended with salt, seemingly resulted within the small cracks, arduous crusty surfaces, free particles and different dune options like depressions and ridges, the Chinese language scientists mentioned. They dominated out wind as a trigger, in addition to frost fabricated from carbon dioxide, which makes up the majority of Mars’ ambiance.

Martian frost has been noticed since NASA’s Nineteen Seventies Viking missions, however these gentle dustings of morning frost have been thought to happen in sure places underneath particular situations.

The rover has now offered “proof that there could also be a wider distribution of this course of on Mars than beforehand recognized,” mentioned Trinity School Dublin’s Mary Bourke, an skilled in Mars geology.

Nonetheless small this watery area of interest, it might be necessary for figuring out liveable environments, she added.

Launched in 2020, the six-wheeled Zhurong — named after a hearth god in Chinese language mythology — arrived at Mars in 2021 and spent a yr roaming round earlier than going into hibernation final Might. The rover operated longer than meant, touring greater than a mile (1,921 meters).

AP video producer Olivia Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report.

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