The concept of life on Mars has always intrigued us. So much so that two years ago, NASA said it was considering advancing its goal of transporting people to Mars by 2037.
Past studies have hinted at evidence of life on Mars in the form of fossils, rocks, and earth-like wet-dry cycles.
The fascination with Mars will only grow, following evidence of flowing water which NASA captured in a photograph.
Reports claim that Mars wasn’t just wet but it also experienced momentous floods.
NASA recently released an image showing boulders over the Jezero Crater, a dried-up river delta. NASA’s Perseverance rover snapped up the image. One of Perseverance’s primary missions is to identify potential signs of past life on Mars.
“The rounded boulders seen here are believed to have been washed into Jezero Crater, which Perseverance is exploring, by strong flood waters billions of years ago,” NASA said in a statement. “This occurred during one of three major periods that scientists have identified in the development of the lake and river system that occupied Jezero in the ancient past.”
The Perseverance rover’s older model, Curiosity, has also spotted strong evidence of water-related events on Mars, approximately 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometres) away from Jezero Crater.
Massive mudslides and boulders the size of cars once swept down Mount Sharp on Mars, leaving behind a noticeable ridge still visible today.
But if microbes ever evolved on the Red Planet, the rover is undoubtedly looking in an ideal spot, the report outlined.
Jezero was a place of streams, rivers, and an expansive 22-mile-wide (35-kilometer) lake. The report added that there could have been life there.
Life could have thrived in this region’s wet soils, similar to how life does on Earth.
Meanwhile, the robot is gathering samples of the Martian surface. NASA wants to examine these rocks and soils. “Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis,” the space agency said in a statement.
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