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Billions of years ago
- For decades, abundant research has suggested that rivers, lakes and seas once covered Mars billions of years ago. For example, in 2015, maps of water in the martian atmosphere suggested that Mars might once have had enough water to cover up to a fifth of the planet.
astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/water-on-mars-the-story-so-far/
2 days ago · Although the surface of Mars is presently cold and dry, plenty of evidence suggests that the red planet was once partly covered with water. Researchers have theorized that life might have evolved on Mars when it was wet, and life could even be there now, hidden in subterranean aquifers.
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Mars contains water, though mostly as permafrost. As top surface layer water appears readily visible at some places, such as the polar Korolev Crater. Almost all water on Mars today exists as polar permafrost ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere. [1]
Jan 26, 2022 · Mars once rippled with rivers and ponds billions of years ago, providing a potential habitat for microbial life. As the planet’s atmosphere thinned over time, that water evaporated, leaving the frozen desert world that NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) studies today.
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Sep 28, 2015 · New findings from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars. Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet.
Jan 27, 2022 · Observations by a long-running Mars mission suggest that liquid water may have flowed on the Red Planet as little as 2 billion years ago, much later than scientists once thought.
5 days ago · An asteroid struck Mars 10.7 million years ago, sending a piece of rock to land on Earth as a meteorite showing liquid water on ancient Mars.
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Mar 29, 2024 · NASA’s Curiosity rover has begun exploring a new region of Mars, one that could reveal more about when liquid water disappeared once and for all from the Red Planet’s surface. Billions of years ago, Mars was much wetter and probably warmer than it is today.