Los Angeles: NASA's rover Perseverance has collected data confirming the presence of ancient water-filled lake sediments in a giant basin on Mars called the Jerezo Crater.
The findings from ground-penetrating radar observations by the robotic rover corroborate previous orbital images and other data that scientists believe may have covered areas of Mars once covered in water and harbored microbial life.
The research, led by teams from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oslo, was published in the journal Science Advances.
It's based on surface scans taken by the car-sized, six-wheeled rover over several months in 2022. , river deltas found on Earth.
Soundings from the rover's RIMFAX radar instrument allowed scientists to get a cross-sectional view of rock layers 65 feet underground, „almost like looking at a road cut,” said UCLA planetary scientist David Paige, first author of the paper.
Posted on January 28, 2024 at dawn