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Space exploration has been a major concern for humans since ancient times. If for a long time the study was done from a distance, now things have changed. NASA's Perseverance rover has collected data confirming the existence of ancient lake sediments, which were deposited by water that once filled a gigantic basin on the planet Mars, now called "Jerezo Crater", according to a studio. The findings, based on ground-based radar observations by the robotic U.S. rover, confirm earlier orbital images and other data that led scientists to hypothesize that parts of Mars were once covered in water and could have harbored microbial life . The new study, led by researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oslo, was published in the journal Science Advances. The research was based on subsurface scans taken by the six-wheeled, car-sized rover over several months in 2022 as it moved across Mars' crust from the bottom of that crater to an adjacent perimeter with sedimentary features, which resemble, when viewed from the Martian orbit, river deltas on Earth. Sound waves emitted by the Perseverance rover's RIMFAX radar instrument allowed scientists to peer underground to obtain a cross-sectional image of rock layers 20 meters deep, "almost like looking at a road cut ", said David Paige, UCLA planetary scientist and lead author of the study. These layers provide indisputable evidence that water-borne soil sediments were deposited in the Jerezo crater and its delta by a river that supplied water to the area, just as is the case with lakes on Earth. The findings reinforced what previous studies had long suggested - that the planet Mars, now cold, barren and lifeless, was once warm, wet and probably habitable. Scientists are looking forward to taking a closer look at the sediments from Jerezo Crater - believed to have formed around 3 billion years ago - in samples collected by Perseverance to be brought back to Earth on future missions. Until then, the latest study is a welcome validation that scientists have been conducting their geo-biological research on Mars in the right place on the "Red Planet".
Remote analysis of the first samples collected by drilling Perseverance in four areas near where it struck in February 2021 surprised the researchers, revealing rocks of a volcanic nature and not sedimentary, as expected. The two studies are not contradictory. Even the volcanic rocks showed signs of weathering by exposure to water, and the scientists who published these findings in August 2022 reasoned at the time that the sedimentary deposits may have eroded away. Indeed, RIMFAX radar readings reported Friday found signs of erosion before and after the formation of sedimentary layers identified at the crater's western rim, evidence of a complex geological history in that area, David Paige said.
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