Mars Rover Data Verifies Red Planet’s Ancient Lake Sediments

NASA’s rover Perseverance acquired data indicating the existence of ancient lake sediments created by water that previously filled a giant basin on Mars known as Jerezo Crater.

The discoveries from the rover’s ground-penetrating radar measurement support prior orbital imagery and other data, prompting scientists to speculate that parts of Mars were originally covered in water and may have harbored microbial life.

The study, led by teams from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oslo, was published in the journal Science Advances.

It was based on subsurface scans obtained by the car-sized, six-wheeled rover over several months in 2022 as it moved over the Martian surface from the crater floor onto an adjacent area of braided, sedimentary-like landforms that resembled from orbit, river deltas on Earth.

“Soundings from the rover’s RIMFAX radar instrument allowed scientists to peep beneath and acquire a cross-sectional view of rock layers 65 feet (20 metres) deep, almost like looking at a road cut”, stated David Paige, UCLA planetary scientist, the paper’s lead author.

These layers give unambiguous evidence that water-borne soil sediments were deposited at Jerezo Crater and its delta from a river that supplied it, exactly as they are in lakes on Earth. The findings supported prior research indicating that cold, arid, lifeless Mars was once warm, wet, and potentially livable.

Scientists are looking forward to an up-close analysis of Jerezo’s sediments, which are expected to have originated some 3 billion years ago and were collected by Perseverance for future transport to Earth.

Meanwhile, the latest study provides positive confirmation that scientists undertook their geo-biological Mars endeavor in the correct location on the planet.

Researchers were shocked when remote examination of early core samples drilled by Perseverance at four sites around where it landed in February 2021 revealed volcanic rock rather than sedimentary rock, as had been predicted.

The two studies are not conflicting. Even the volcanic rocks showed traces of water exposure, and scientists who reported their findings in August 2022 hypothesized that sedimentary deposits had worn away.

“Indeed, the RIMFAX radar data announced on Friday revealed traces of erosion both before and after the creation of sedimentary strata along the crater’s western border, indicating a complex geological history there”, Paige noted.

Paige went on to say, “There were volcanic rocks that we landed on”.

“The real news here is that now we’ve driven onto the delta and now we’re seeing evidence of these lake sediments, which is one of the main reasons we came to this location. So that’s a happy story in that respect”, Paige added.

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