In News:

Chinese rover helps find evidence of ancient Martian shoreline.

Mission Overview:

• Rover: Zhurong, part of China’s Tianwen-1 Mars exploration program.
• Mission Launch: Zhurong landed in 2021 in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars' northern hemisphere.
• Key Discovery: Evidence of an ancient ocean on Mars, suggesting a habitable past for the planet.

Key Findings:

• Geological Features Indicating a Coastline:
  • Data from Zhurong and orbiting spacecraft (Tianwen-1 Orbiter, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) revealed geological features such as troughs, sediment channels, and mud volcano formations, suggesting the existence of a Martian coastline.
  • Features indicate both shallow and deeper marine environments, supporting the idea of a past ocean.
• Age of the Ocean:
  • The ocean likely existed around 3.68 billion years ago, with its surface potentially frozen in a geologically short period.
  • The ocean is thought to have disappeared by 3.42 billion years ago.

Evolutionary Scenario of Mars:

• At the time of the ocean, Mars might have already begun transitioning away from a habitable planet, losing much of its atmosphere and becoming cold and dry.
• The ocean may have formed after Mars' climate began to change, suggesting that it was once more hospitable, possibly capable of supporting microbial life.

Implications for Life on Mars:

• The presence of water, a key ingredient for life, raises the possibility that Mars could have supported microbial life in its early history.
• When Mars had a thick, warm atmosphere, conditions might have been favorable for life, as microbial life would have been more likely to exist.

Significance of Zhurong's Contribution:

• Zhurong exceeded its original mission duration of three months, operating until May 2022, helping provide key data to understand Mars' ancient water history.
• The discovery adds to ongoing efforts to study the disappearance of water on Mars and its implications for the planet's habitability.

Future Exploration:

• Other studies, including seismic data from NASA’s InSight lander, suggest that liquid water might still exist deep beneath the Martian surface, hinting at the possibility of finding water in the planet's subsurface in the future.