Scientists discover evidence of ancient oceans, beaches on Mars

A team of international researchers has analyzed data collected by the Chinese Mars rover Zhurong and found evidence suggesting that the red planet once featured beaches and oceans with waves and wind, according to a paper published on Monday.

Researchers from U.S. and Chinese universities studied data collected by the Zhurong, which landed in an area of Mars known as Utopia Planitia in 2021.

The rover was deployed to look for signs of ancient water or ice on the planet and collected data on the geology of its surroundings using low and high-frequency radar.

“We’re finding places on Mars that used to look like ancient beaches and ancient river deltas,” said co-author Benjamin Cardenas, assistant professor of geology at U.S. university Penn State. “We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand – a proper, vacation-style beach.”

“Various observations suggest that large amounts of liquid water once existed on the Martian surface. However, the nature and fate of this water are uncertain,” the researchers write in the Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

“This finding implies the past existence of a large water body, supporting the hypothesis of a past ocean in the northern plains of Mars,” they continue.

Cardenas said that the data revealed underground sedimentary deposits with a similar layered structure to Earth’s beaches, including deposits sloping down as if towards oceans.

“This stood out to us immediately because it suggests there were waves, which means there was a dynamic interface of air and water,” Cardenas said, adding that the discovery supports the hypothesis that a large ocean once covered a large portion of the northern pole of Mars.

Michael Manga from the University of California, Berkeley, said that Zhurong’s “ground-penetrating radar gives us a view of the subsurface of the planet, which allows us to do geology that we could have never done before.”

“All these incredible advancements in technology have made it possible to do basic science that is revealing a trove of new information about Mars.”