A new study carried out by researchers from Imperial College London and from NASA discovered that the water on Mars it existed for longer than we imagined, in addition to being found abundantly in the past.
Through images from Curiosity rover, it was possible to find signs in the Gale crater — a basin 154 km in diameter south of the equator — that water was present on the planet long after we thought it had become dry and inhospitable.
The images analyzed by the researchers showed deformed layers within a desert sandstone that could only have been formed by water. “What is clear is that behind each of these potential ways to deform this sandstone, water is the common thread,” he said. Steven Banham of Department of Earth Sciences and Engineering Imperial College London.
While they agree that water was present, it is still uncertain whether it existed as pressurized liquid, ice, or brine. “This water may have been a pressurized liquid, forced and deformed into the sediment; frozen, with repetition of the freezing and thawing process causing deformation; or salty and subject to large temperature variations”, explained the researcher.
This discovery influences our understanding of climate change on Mars in addition to enabling guidance in studies on the habitability of the planet.
Source: CNN Brasil
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