Meaning we might be close to finding traces of life on the red planet.
, also revealed that flash floods occurred in the now desolate region. "If you look at these images, you're basically staring at this epic desert landscape," Benjamin Weiss, professor of planetary sciences at MIT and a member of the analysis team explained."There’s not a drop of water anywhere, and yet, here we have evidence of a very different past. Something very profound happened in the planet's history.
The Mars Perseverance team picked out the Jezero crater as their landing location after satellite images showed fan-shaped rock formations resembling river deltas on Earth. The new images were taken during the first three months of the rovers February arrival on Mars, a time in which it remained stationary while NASA engineers performed remote analysis of the machine's instruments.
The new MIT study explains that the lake was calm for large periods until a change in climate caused flash flooding in the region. According to the researchers, the floods carried large boulders tens of miles from higher altitudes down to the lake bed where they are still present today. Next, Perseverance will look for locations from which to collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth by future missions.
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