Water could be more widespread and recent on Mars than previously thought, based on observations of Martian sand dunes by China’s rover.
The finding highlights new, potentially fertile areas in the warmer regions of Mars where conditions might be suitable for life to exist, although more study is needed.
Friday’s news comes days after mission leaders said that the Zhurong rover has yet to wake up since going into hibernation for the Martian winter nearly a year ago.
Photo: Reuters
Its solar panels are likely covered with dust, choking off its power source and possibly preventing it from operating again, said Zhang Rongqiao (張榮橋), the mission’s chief designer.
Before Zhurong fell silent, it observed salt-rich dunes with cracks and crusts, which researchers said were likely mixed with melting morning frost or snow as recently as a few hundred thousand years ago.
Their estimated date range for when the cracks and other dune features formed in Mars’ Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere: some time after 1.4 million to 400,000 years ago or even younger.
Conditions during that period were similar to now on Mars, with rivers and lakes dried up and no longer flowing as they did billions of years earlier.
Studying the structure and chemical makeup of these dunes can provide insights into “the possibility of water activity” during this period, the Beijing-based team wrote in a study published in Science Advances.
“We think it could be a small amount ... no more than a film of water on the surface,” coauthor Qin Xiaoguang (秦小光), of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geology and Geophysics, said in an e-mail.
The rover did not detect any water in the form of frost or ice, but Qin said that computer simulations and observations by other spacecraft on Mars indicate that even now at certain times of year, conditions could be suitable for water to appear.
What is notable about the study is how young the dunes are, said Frederic Schmidt, a planetary geologist at the University of Paris-Saclay, who was not part of the study.
“This is clearly a new piece of science for this region,” he said.
Small pockets of water from thawing frost or snow, mixed with salt, likely resulted in the small cracks, hard crusty surfaces, loose particles and other dune features such as depressions and ridges, the Chinese scientists said.
They ruled out wind as a cause, as well as frost made of carbon dioxide, which makes up the bulk of Mars’ atmosphere.
Martian frost has been observed since NASA’s 1970s Viking missions, but these light dustings of morning frost were thought to occur in certain locations under specific conditions.
The rover has now provided “evidence that there may be a wider distribution of this process on Mars than previously identified,” said Mary Bourke, an expert in Mars geology at Trinity College Dublin.
However small this watery niche, it could be important for identifying habitable environments, she said.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS