Minerals that can only be formed in the presence of liquid water have again been detected on Mars, this time in huge craters in the low-lying terrain of the red planet’s northern hemisphere.
The new survey found the so-called hydrated minerals in nine giant craters dotting the northern plains of Mars. The minerals appear to have been formed by liquid water more than 3 billion years ago, suggesting that past water on Mars altered the planet’s surface much more significantly than researchers previously thought.
“The southern hemisphere of Mars is ancient – over 4 billion years old,” lead researcher John Carter, of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique in Orsay, France, told SPACE.com. “It’s highly cratered with lots of geological structures, and there are quite a few sites where we have these hydrated minerals. So, we already knew that there was likely liquid water on or near the surface of early Mars.”
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