Wednesday, June 13

New Evidence Points to Oceans on Mars

A view of Mars as it might have appeared more than 2 billion years ago, with a low-latitude ocean filling the lowland basin that now occupies the north polar region. Topographic deformation of features that ring the basin, which are hypothesized to be shorelines formed by an ancient ocean, suggests that Mars experienced significant true polar wander--reorientation of the planet relative to its rotation axis--that brought the planet into its present rotational state. The margins of the ocean shown here account for the topographic deformation that would have resulted from this reorientation. Sinuous features near the top of the image are valleys carved by large floods that may have supplied the ocean water. The image was generated using Viking Orbiter images and topographic data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on board the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. (Taylor Perron/UC Berkeley)


New Evidence Points to Oceans on Mars from PhysOrg.com

Scientists have found new evidence to support the presence of large oceans on Mars in the past. Published in the June 14 issue of Nature, the research suggests that changes in Mars’ orientation with respect to its axis might be responsible for large variations in the topography of shoreline-like features on the planet. Scientists have studied these features for more than 30 years, and the current study presents a new, alternative explanation for how they formed.[...]

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