Analysis of the data gained from NASA’s rover Perseverance has reconfirmed the theory that scientists have been insisting on for years: Mars was once a warm, wet planet that may have housed microbial life.
The data confirmed the existence of ancient lake sediments on Mars, which were created by a large water body on the planet.
The large basin of water most likely existed in Jerezo Crater, according to the detailed study published on Jan 26 in the journal Science Advances.
The car-sized, six-wheeled rover scrurried the Martian surface through several months of 2022 and conducted several subsurface scans on its way from the floor of the crater to an adjacent expanse of braided, sedimentary-like features resembling the river deltas found on Earth.
The layers inside the surface hinted at irrefutable evidence of soil sediments being carried there by its delta from a river that once fed it billions of years ago.
Scientists estimated the sediments could have been formed some 3 billion years ago.