Evidence has found that Mars once had “seasons” with alternating dry and wet seasons! – Nazology

Did Mars have seasons?

The surface of Mars is not subject to crustal movements like Earth’s, so it has a comprehensive geological record of more than 4 billion years.

Unlike Earth, this is a great strength in the study of the history and transition of planets.

In a previous research,About 3.8 billion years ago, Mars was covered in oceans, lakes, and riversi know that.

It’s a big difference from Mars today, where dust clouds are just dancing around.

Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, was once an island in the vicinity of Mars!

In addition, this time the research team surveyed the plains of Elysium near the Martian equator.storm holeA new discovery.

The 154-kilometer-diameter Gale Crater formed about 3.8-3.5 billion years ago and has been under investigation by the Curiosity spacecraft since 2012.

Meanwhile, Curiosity is located in Gale Crater,The discovery of a honeycomb-like fossil fossil record rich in calcium and magnesium saltsan act.

The team succeeded in unraveling the process by which these patterns are created from the same terrain as on Earth.

Accordingly, most likelyDry the clay in a humid environmentHe is.

This pattern is said to be created by repeating wet and dry periods many times, not just once.

It is said that at the beginning of the wet-dry cycle, the dry mud cracks like a T-junction. It will create a honeycomb-like hexagonal pattern.

In addition, the abundant salinity found in the fossils clearly indicates that the salinity was deposited during wet-dry cycles.

ResearchersThe salt water that had permeated the mud during the dry season evaporated, leaving only the salt behind, and this process was repeated to gradually increase salinity.I look at him.

Finally, from the thickness of the ornate fossil bed, teamWet and dry cycle lasts at least thousands to millions of yearsI imagined.

“This is the first concrete evidence of an Earth-like climate cycle on ancient Mars (about 3.8 to 3.5 billion years ago),” said principal investigator William Rabin.

“more important,This climate cycle may have facilitated the formation of the molecules that gave rise to lifeThat’s it.

In the previous research,The wet/dry cycle is a single molecule, “monomer”Important as a basis for producing reactions that bind to each other to form large molecular “polymers”.i know that.

And some polymers are also the building blocks of living organisms.DNAincluded.

It is expected that this climate cycle may have played a role in the origination of life on ancient Earth, and the presence of the same substrate on Mars indicates that some forms of life may have originated on Mars as well.

So far, no evidence of life has been found on Mars, but traces of life may be found as we explore nearby terrain patterns of this type.

NASA’s Mars rover discovers ‘biological bones’ at the bottom of a crater!