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It’s impossible to know what Mars looked like billions of years ago, but a robotic explorer’s intrepid sleuthing is giving astronomers a glimpse into the past.
NASA’s Perseverance rover celebrated its 1000th day on the red planet. Percy completed his research on an ancient river delta that fed a Martian surface feature called Jezero Crater.
By examining and sampling rocks Since its landing in February 2021, the rover has helped scientists create a timeline showing when a shallow lake filled the crater.
Now the rover continues its quest to find traces of past life on the red planet. And a new discovery on Earth may give scientists an idea of what fossils might look like if they existed on Mars.
Once upon a time a planet
A previously hidden lagoon system in Puna de Atacama, an arid plateau in northwestern Argentina, provides a rare window into what ecosystems were like on early Earth billions of years ago.
Lagoons contain living fossils called giant stromatolites, or layered rocks formed by algae and minerals such as gypsum and rock salt.
The inhospitable environment of the high salt plains is often compared to Mars. But Mars may have once been more like Earth, as the red planet was likely covered by lakes and perhaps an ocean billions of years ago.
“If we were to find any kind of fossils on Mars, this would be our best guess at what they might be, because they are the oldest fossils in the rock record on Earth,” said Brian Hynek, a professor in the department. in geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
other worlds
Saturn’s moon Enceladus has long intrigued astronomers as an ocean world that could support life in our solar system.
Clouds of ice grains and water vapor rise from cracks in its thick, icy crust, indicating the presence of a salty subsurface ocean. And now, a new analysis of data collected by NASA’s Cassini mission has revealed hydrogen cyanide, a molecule that plays an important role in the processes that drive the origin of life.
Moreover, the research team found evidence that the moon has a chemical energy source driven by organic compounds.
The presence of water, energy, and the building blocks of life suggests that Enceladus may be the best place to search for life beyond Earth.
discoveries
Some of the most exciting art and archaeological works The year’s findings were both unusual and unexpected.
Historical detectives have identified the man carrying a bunch of sticks on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1971 album, commonly known as “Led Zeppelin IV.”
Researchers have discovered the oldest known European shoes and uncovered a Bronze Age sword that still shines.
And nearly 400-year-old murals have been revealed from behind a kitchen wall, while a secret corridor has been found inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.
we are a family
People who tend to wake up early may owe some of this success to Neanderthals, new research suggests.
Neanderthals evolved over hundreds of thousands of years while living in the high latitudes of Europe and Asia. Over time, our extinct relatives were probably better adapted to seasonal changes in daylight than early modern humans who lived closer to the equator in Africa.
This genetic heritage may have been passed on as humans migrated around the world and encountered Neanderthals. This is just one of many Neanderthal genes traced from ancient DNA and discovered in modern human populations.
All Over the Universe
A new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope has given astronomers the closest, most detailed look inside the remnants of an exploded star.
This is the second time researchers have used Webb to observe Cassiopeia A, a bright supernova remnant in our galaxy.
Some of the newly detected features include ghostly light echoes that resemble the offspring of a giant cosmic cloud.
A separate research team observed a mysterious, recurring fast radio burst coming from space that has a never-before-seen strangeness: The phenomenon has a frequency that sounds like a celestial whistle.
curious things
Settle in and embark on a journey with these unusual reads:
— Engineers are trying to resolve a computer glitch on the 46-year-old Voyager 1 spacecraft, which stopped sending scientific data while exploring the outer edges of our solar system 15 billion miles away.
— The massive, well-preserved skull of a prehistoric sea monster has been found on a beach in southern England and will be detailed in a documentary hosted by legendary naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
— Scientists have discovered an unusual phenomenon that keeps Himalayan glaciers cool despite rising global temperatures.
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