Did rivers once run on the Red Planet?A fan-shaped region of debris on Mars is providing new evidence that the planet, now bone-dry, once had persistent rivers or lakes. Images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was a US spacecraft developed by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. It began the United States's return to Mars after a 20-year absence. spacecraft show what appear to be ancient sedimentary deposits that have hardened into curved ridges of layered rock. Some of the features in the region could have formed when ancient rivers meandered for vast stretches of time, says Michael C. Malin
The apparently water-sculpted region covers an area 13 kilometers long and 17 km wide within a crater on Mars' southern hemisphere. It lies downhill from a large network of channels that may have drained into it billions of years ago. The fan shape of the area and the pattern of channels suggest the region may have been a delta where a river entered another body of water, Malin and coworker co·work·er or co-work·er n. One who works with another; a fellow worker. Kenneth S. Edgett report in an upcoming Science. If this interpretation proves correct, the finding "would be the strongest indicator yet [that] Mars once had lakes," Malin says.--R.C. |
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