Some liquid water lakes and streams formed on Mars much later than scientists previously thought, according to a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Planets. The findings suggest Mars may have been habitable — and could have potentially hosted primitive forms of life — billions of years later than before thought possible.
Using data acquired by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the research team, led by Sharon Wilson from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., examined images of ancient valleys that were carved out by lakes and rivers of old. Nothing unusual there — NASA has collected a trove of evidence that confirm that a warmer Mars was teeming with lakes and oceans of liquid water billions of years ago.
What’s different here, however, is that these particular valleys and dried basins — located in Mars’ northern Arabia Terra region — were host to water much later, at a time when Mars was thought to be a cold, dry rock.
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