Skywizard
20th July 2013, 12:47
Mars could have been in the 'comfort zone' at one time.
Scientists have spotted more evidence that an enormous ocean on Mars covered much of the planet's surface billions of years ago.
The latest clues were found in photos from NASA's powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the planet. The images show what appears to be an ancient river delta, which may have emptied into a vast Martian ocean that inundated up to one-third of the Red Planet long ago, a new study reports.
22080
Left photo: A shaded relief map shows channelized sedimentary deposits interpreted as an ancient river delta in Aeolis Dorsa, Mars. Right photo: A modern delta on Earth.
"Scientists have long hypothesized that the northern lowlands of Mars are a dried-up ocean bottom, but no one yet has found the smoking gun," study co-author Mike Lamb, an assistant professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, said in a statement.
The new study does not provide the long-sought smoking gun, researchers stressed, but it further bolsters the hypothesis.
Read more at: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/more-proof-ancient-mars-river-may-have-flowed-huge-ocean-6C10661039
peace...
skywizard
Scientists have spotted more evidence that an enormous ocean on Mars covered much of the planet's surface billions of years ago.
The latest clues were found in photos from NASA's powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the planet. The images show what appears to be an ancient river delta, which may have emptied into a vast Martian ocean that inundated up to one-third of the Red Planet long ago, a new study reports.
22080
Left photo: A shaded relief map shows channelized sedimentary deposits interpreted as an ancient river delta in Aeolis Dorsa, Mars. Right photo: A modern delta on Earth.
"Scientists have long hypothesized that the northern lowlands of Mars are a dried-up ocean bottom, but no one yet has found the smoking gun," study co-author Mike Lamb, an assistant professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, said in a statement.
The new study does not provide the long-sought smoking gun, researchers stressed, but it further bolsters the hypothesis.
Read more at: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/more-proof-ancient-mars-river-may-have-flowed-huge-ocean-6C10661039
peace...
skywizard