Research suggests Mars was once covered by 300 meter deep oceans
Mars is called the red planet. But once, it was actually blue and covered in water, bringing us closer to finding out if Mars had ever harboured life.
Copenhagen [Denmark], November 17 (ANI): The “red planet” refers to Mars. We’re getting closer to learning whether life has ever existed on Mars thanks to the discovery that it was previously blue and submerged in water.
Although there has been water on Mars, the exact amount is still up for question, according to the majority of academics.
According to a recent study from the University of Copenhagen, there was enough water on the planet 4.5 billion years ago for a 300-meter-deep ocean to cover the entire planet.
“At this time, Mars was bombarded with asteroids filled with ice. It happened in the first 100 million years of the planet’s evolution. Another interesting angle is that the asteroids also carried organic molecules that are biologically important for life,” says Professor Martin Bizzarro from the Centre for Star and Planet Formation.
The icy asteroids not only transported water to the Red Planet but also biologically important compounds like amino acids. When DNA and RNA combine to make bases that have all the components a cell requires, amino acids are employed.
The research was released in the esteemed journal Science Advances.
Before Earth, Mars may have possessed the right environment for life.
According to the latest research, the planet’s ancient oceans were at least 300 metres deep. They might have reached a depth of one kilometre. According to Martin Bizzarro, there is actually not much water on Earth.
“This happened within Mars’s first 100 million years. After this period, something catastrophic happened for potential life on Earth. It is believed that there was a gigantic collision between the Earth and another Mars-sized planet. It was an energetic collision that formed the Earth-Moon system and, at the same time, wiped out all potential life on Earth,” says Martin Bizzarro.
Therefore, the researchers have really strong evidence that conditions allowing the emergence of life were present on Mars long before Earth.
Billion-year-old meteorite
The researchers were able to examine the past of Mars thanks to a meteorite that is billions of years old. The meteorite, which was previously a piece of Mars’s initial crust, provides a special window into the events surrounding the formation of the solar system.
The meteorite that was previously a part of Mars’ surface, which is a surface that does not move, is where the entire secret is hidden. It is the opposite on Earth. In the interior of the earth, the tectonic plates are renewed and in constant motion.
“Plate tectonics on Earth erased all evidence of what happened in the first 500 million years of our planet’s history. The plates constantly move and are recycled back and destroyed into the interior of our planet. In contrast, Mars does not have plate tectonics such that the planet’s surface preserves a record of the earliest history of the planet,” explains Martin Bizzarro. (ANI)
