Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
We, humans, have been looking at Mars for far longer than the space exploration industry has been around. As a result, there are a lot of things we know about the place (and a lot more we don’t), but also a wealth of implied things that kind of float out there between certainty and uncertainty, confirmation and rumor.
The presence of water on the planet, sometime long ago in its past, is a given, considering the many hints and clues that keep popping up. To date, we’re yet to see a definite and definitive confirmation of that coming from someone.
But, as said, clues are all over the place, and so is the one coming our way of a photo taken by the HiRISE camera back in 2020, from an altitude of 249 km (155 miles). It shows an area next to the Lowell Crater in the Aonia Terra region of the planet.
The photo depicts, just like all others of its kind, an alien landscape, only this time dotted with pockmarks, which kind of look like the entry/exit to some creature's lair. Yet not even these features are of interest to us today, but the signs of erosion seen on the wall of the crater.
Much more pronounced here than anywhere else on Lowell’s wall, these features could have been formed by the action of either lava or water. As per the scientists over at NASA and the University of Arizona, who study HiRISE images, water is the most likely culprit.
The confirmed presence of water on Mars borderlines humanity’s official acknowledgment that the planet might have once harbored life in some form or another. A number of pieces of hardware are currently deployed on Mars, including the recently-arrived Perseverance (and more are in the pipeline), looking exactly for that.
But, as said, clues are all over the place, and so is the one coming our way of a photo taken by the HiRISE camera back in 2020, from an altitude of 249 km (155 miles). It shows an area next to the Lowell Crater in the Aonia Terra region of the planet.
The photo depicts, just like all others of its kind, an alien landscape, only this time dotted with pockmarks, which kind of look like the entry/exit to some creature's lair. Yet not even these features are of interest to us today, but the signs of erosion seen on the wall of the crater.
Much more pronounced here than anywhere else on Lowell’s wall, these features could have been formed by the action of either lava or water. As per the scientists over at NASA and the University of Arizona, who study HiRISE images, water is the most likely culprit.
The confirmed presence of water on Mars borderlines humanity’s official acknowledgment that the planet might have once harbored life in some form or another. A number of pieces of hardware are currently deployed on Mars, including the recently-arrived Perseverance (and more are in the pipeline), looking exactly for that.
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