Ancient Martian Lakes Showed Liquid Water Exposed to Atmosphere
2025-02-21
Curiosity rover images reveal wave ripples in Gale Crater, indicating the presence of shallow lakes with liquid water exposed to the Martian atmosphere billions of years ago. The size of the ripples suggests the lakes were less than 2 meters deep, existing approximately 3.7 billion years ago. This challenges previous models that assumed surface water was always ice-covered. The discovery extends the potential window for microbial life on Mars, though most of its atmosphere and water later vanished due to the loss of its magnetic field.