Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.
Jam packed issues filled with the latest cutting-edge research, technology and theories delivered in an entertaining and visually stunning way, aiming to educate and inspire readers of all agesThe Martian new year begins with data from a now-defunct rover spotting what appears to be an ancient shoreline streaking throughrover say the findings offer fresh support to the decades-old hypothesis that an ancient ocean covered the Martian north billions of years ago.
By combining observations from the rover's onboard cameras and ground-penetrating radar with remote sensing data from orbiting satellites, Bo Wu at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and his colleagues spotted several water-related features around the rover's landing area. They included crater-like pitted cones, troughs, sediment channels and mud volcano formations that the team interprets as evidence of an ancient coastline.
"The findings not only provide further evidence to support the theory of a Martian ocean but also present, for the first time, a discussion on its probable evolutionary scenario," Wu told The presence of water, a key ingredient for life as we know it, and an ancient ocean on Mars suggests the Red Planet was once capable of harboring conditions friendly toward microbial life. Scientists continue to piece together just how all that water began disappearing into space approximately 3 billion years ago. Much of its escape is known to have been accelerated by a young sun's frequent solar storms that stripped away Mars' once-thick atmosphere.
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