2024-01-27 06:49:47
Meteor impact craters on the surface of Mars captured by NASA’s Mars Orbiter. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
[The Epoch Times, January 27, 2024](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Chen Ting) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) “Perseverance」（Perseverance）MarsEvidence collected by the probe indicates that ancient craters exist in a crater on Mars called Jerezo Crater.lakeSediments indicate that this vast basin was once flooded with water.
Scientists previously used orbital images and other data to speculate thatMarsSome areas were covered by water in the past and may have contained microorganisms. 「Perseverance“The ground-penetrating radar conducted underground scanning and collected data and discovered ancient traces on Mars.lakesediments, which proves that there were lakes on this planet.
The research, led by a team from UCLA and the University of Oslo, has been published in the journal Science Advances (Link）。
This study is based on underground scans taken by the 2022 Perseverance rover as it passes through the bottom of the crater. From an aerial view, the landscape of these areas is similar to deltas on Earth.
Perseverance’s RIMFAX ground-penetrating radar can obtain cross-sectional views of rock formations 65 feet (about 20 meters) deep. Researchers said that when Perseverance passed through the contact between the bottom of the impact crater and the delta, RIMFAX detected obvious discontinuities in the underground structure.
David Paige, lead author of the paper, said: “These rock formations provide unequivocal evidence that water-borne soil sediments accumulated in Jezero Crater and the delta from a stream that provided the water source. Rivers, as in lakes on Earth.”
“These findings confirm what previous studies have long suggested: Mars, which was cold, arid, and lifeless, was once warm, moist, and perhaps habitable,” Page said.
Some rock samples have been collected on the “Perseverance” and are waiting to be brought back to Earth during the next Mars exploration mission. Scientists are looking forward to getting a closer look at the Jezero Crater sediments. It is believed that these deposits may have formed approximately 3 billion years ago.
Page also said that RIMFAX radar data showed that at a site on the western edge of the crater, there were signs of erosion before and after the sedimentary layers were formed, proving that there is a complex geological history there.
Editor in charge: Ye Ziwei
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