Using data from China’s Zhurong Mars rover, Chinese scientists have found the most direct evidence that there was once an ancient ocean in the mid-to-low latitude regions of Mars.
Carrying a ground-penetrating radar, the rover found evidence of parallel coastal-like structures about 10-15 meters below the landing area of Zhurong, similar to beaches on Earth.
Zhurong landed on Mars in May 2021 in the south of the Utopia Planitia, an enormous basin structure in the northern hemisphere of Mars.
Those findings indicate that the basin might have experienced a long-term warm and moist climate. It means the planet, now dry and dusty, may once have had conditions to support the existence of liquid water in the form of a large ocean, which must have existed for millions of years to form the thick layers of sand. Any evidence of previous life could be found in such structures, scientists said.
With similar geological features and seasonal and day-night changes like Earth, Mars is regarded as a top destination for interplanetary immigration, but past exploration mostly concentrated on high-latitude regions.
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) in February.
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