There Perseverance Mars roverder NASA, who is currently exploring Jezero Crater through images from Mars, has shared new findings. These show that the Red Planet had persistent interactions with water, according to the recently published study. The Mars mission launched on July 30, 2020 and reached the Red Planet on February 18 after a 203-day journey covering 472 million kilometers. Perseverance explored the floor of Jezero Crater, which was once a lake, as well as a dry river delta on the crater's rim.
New evidence of life through images from Mars
Based on the detailed images of the six-wheel rover, the team has now published the first scientific results on the Jezero Crater Delta in the journal Science. The images from Mars show that billions of years ago, when the planet had an atmosphere thick enough to support water flowing over its surface, Jezero's fan-shaped river delta experienced late-stage floods that expelled rocks and debris carried into him from the highlands far outside the crater. The rover accordingly provided images of long, steep slopes in the delta. These formed from sediments that accumulated at the mouth of a river that long ago fed the crater lake. The new photos also provide insight into where the Mars rover could best look for rock and sediment samples. These include the organic compounds and other evidence that life once existed there.
The cameras also captured rocks and boulders on each of the steep faces of the bluffs and beyond. The researchers observed different layers in the steep slopes with boulders up to 1.5 meters in diameter. They knew that they had no business there. These layers mean that the slow, meandering waterway that fed the delta must have been altered by later, fast-moving flash floods. The science team estimates that a stream of water needed to carry the boulders dozens of kilometers would have to move at speeds of 6 to 30 km/h.This studyalso describes the size of Lake Jezero, which fluctuates greatly over time. This is the crucial observation that allows researchers to confirm once and for all the presence of a lake and river delta at Jezero.
