On its 10th anniversary, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter finds a unusual lake

The dried up pond – “one of the last instances of a sizable lake on Mars”, according to the study’s lead researcher – was digitally mapped by a team from CU’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, along with researchers from two other universities.

Meanwhile the evidence of salt deposits across the surface of Mars indicates water must have once existed there; and this is something researchers have been trying to establish its source and origin. Even if some of the details concerning the presence of water and potential of Martian life can be clarified through further research, we still may not be much closer to knowing exactly what kind of life forms were once present on the planet, according to Hynek in a CBS News report.

Scientists are particularly interested in the salt deposits in the lake’s bed. Then they compare this information to similar regions on the Moon, whose age we have a better handle on. It has salt deposits that could conceivable have housed some of the last living organisms that may have once been on the planet.

10 years ago, NASA launched its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) with the objective of observing the Red Planet from above. They found evidence to suggest that at one point, the lake grew large enough to spill over the rim of the basin, carving channels in its wake. The channels were created by flowing water that ran through areas of volcanic plains that are about 3.6 billion years old so the water can’t have existed earlier than this. That means the lake must also be younger than 3.6 billion years. Some examples of these are the Bonneville Salt Flats in the US and Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. It captured images of valleys cut into Mars, spotted volcanoes on the red planet and discovered Martian ice sheets. Hynek and his colleagues are clear on their plan to continue studying these salt deposits to see if there’s more evidence of water on the planet. “As the water evaporates away a lot of organic matter and a lot of microbial evidence gets encased in salts and is preserved for long time periods”. A dried up lakebed near the equator of Mars has been found, one which would likely contain simple fossilized life if it once existed there. The lake’s salinity, acidity, oxygen levels, and available nutrients for food are all important.

Hynek still has several questions concerning the historical narrative of water on Mars’ surface. However, the other three factors are hard to measure without sending a rover there to scoop up the soil and analyze what’s in it.