NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured a stunning image of the Red Planet’s surface, showing frozen sand dunes in the northern hemisphere that resemble kidney beans. The image, taken by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera in September 2022 and released to the public just last month, could help find out whether life on Mars could have persisted in conditions long ago. Could have done.
Unlike the dunes on Earth, which are constantly in motion, the kidney bean-sized mounds on Mars appear surprisingly motionless. According to NASA, the dunes seen in the picture are covered with a layer of carbon dioxide during winter on Mars. During the cold months, nighttime temperatures at the planet’s poles can drop as low as -123 °C creating ideal conditions for both snowfall and frost. But unlike Earth’s ice, Mars’ ice comes in two forms: water ice and frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice.
Frost, composed of both water ice and carbon dioxide ice, prevents wind from carrying sand and keeps the dunes from migrating until the spring thaw arrives. Studying how carbon dioxide frost changes under current conditions could help better predict past climates on Mars.
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Life on Mars?
Scientists have been searching for answers about the presence of life on Mars for a long time. In October last year, a NASA study said that microbes could find a possible home beneath frozen water on the surface of the Red Planet. Scientists discovered that the amount of sunlight penetrating water ice can be sufficient to trigger photosynthesis in the shallow pools of meltwater beneath the surface of that ice.
A month later, a study by researchers at Harvard’s Paleomagnetics Lab revealed that Mars’ magnetic field, which could support life, may have lasted much longer than previously thought.
While Mars is now cold, barren and rocky, evidence suggests that the magnetic field may have been there as long as 3.9 billion years ago, compared to the previous estimate of 4.1 billion years – making the Red Planet a prime candidate for a rich environment capable of supporting life.
An additional 200 million years overlaps with the era when the surface of Mars was covered with water, evidence of which has been collected by multiple rovers sent by NASA.
