A Mars Megaflood in the Ancient Past? - The Cosmic Companion Nov. 21, 2020

A massive flood in the early age of our solar system may have shaped Gale Crater - and the Red Planet.

A Mars megaflood may have shaped Gale Crater forever. This event could reveal details of ancient waterways — and maybe life — on Mars.

Mars was once a water world, much more like the Earth than it is today. New investigations of data from the Curiosity rover shows evidence of a widespread flood in the distant past. Image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)

By James Maynard

Long ago, when our solar system was young, Mars was a world teeming with water. Researchers at Cornell University have now found evidence of an ancient massive megaflood on the Red Planet.

Gale Crater, explored by the Curiosity rover, provided data showing distinct signs of a titanic flood, roughly four billion years in the past. This finding could provide further evidence that Mars once had a climate suitable for the development of primitive life.

“We identified megafloods for the first time using detailed sedimentological data observed by the rover Curiosity. Deposits left behind by megafloods had not been previously identified with orbiter data,” Alberto Fairén, a visiting astrobiologist in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, stated.

Read more: https://thecosmiccompanion.net/a-mars-megaflood-in-the-ancient-past

Join us on Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion December 1, as we welcome Dr. Ezat Heydari, Professor of Geoscience at Jackson State University, to the show, talking about this study.

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- James