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Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Discovery supports idea the Red Planet was once wetter and warmer

Tuesday 26 February 2019 15:00 GMT

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

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1/13Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Perspective view of ancient river valley network on Mars

These images taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express satellite show the marks that an ancient network of rivers have left on the planet’s surface.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Ancient river valley network on Mars

The valleys formed as they would on earth, with a strong flow of water carving its way through the landscape. What is less clear is where the water came from. Due to a lack of knowledge about the past climate of Mars, scientists can not tell whether it came from groundwater, precipitation, melting glaciers or something unheard of.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Ancient river valley network on Mars

This colour-coded topographic view shows the relative heights of the terrain in and around the network of dried-up valleys on Mars. Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitudes show up in whites, yellows, and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Ancient river valley network on Mars

This image shows the landscape in and around a network of dried-up valleys on Mars. The region outlined by the bold white box indicates the area photographed by the Mars Express.

NASA MGS MOLA Science Team/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Eberswalde crater delta

This dried-up ancient river delta once carried liquid water across the surface of Mars. The photographed area is 31 x 7.5km. Released on February 4 2019.

ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Eberswalde crater delta

Eberswalde crater formed more than 3.7 billion years ago. The rim of the crater is only intact in the north-eastern part, the rest has been buried by debris from the nearby, more recently formed Holden crater.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Eberswalde crater delta

In the left of the image is the Holden crater, which is 140km across. To the right is the Eberswalde crater, which is 65km across.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Korolev crater

A perspective view of the Korolev crater, an 82-kilometre-across crater filled with ice found in the northern lowlands of Mars. Taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Korolev crater

The Korolev crater, an 82-kilometre-across crater filled with ice found in the northern lowlands of Mars. Taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite.

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Korolev crater

DisThis colour-coded topographic view shows the relative heights of the terrain in and around Korolev crater, an ice-filled crater in the northern lowlands of Mars. Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher-altitude regions show up in whites, browns, and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right. The crater’s thick deposit of ice can be seen at the centre of the frame. Released December 20 2018

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Water buried under the south pole of Mars

ESA’s Mars Express has used radar signals bounced through underground layers of ice to identify a pond of water buried below the surface.

ESA/NASA/JPL/ASI/University of Rome

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Water buried under the south pole of Mars

The brighttop line represents the icy surface of Mars in this region. The south polar layered deposits – layers of ice and dust – are seen to a depth of about 1.5 km. Below is a base layer that in some areas is brighter than the surface reflections, highlighted in blue, while in other places is rather diffuse. The details of the reflected signals from the base layer yield properties that correspond to liquid water.

ESA/NASA/JPL/ASI/University of Rome

Signs of ancient rivers on Mars revealed in new images

Water buried under the south pole of Mars

The 200km square study area is shown in the left image and the right image shows the radar footprints on the surface of Mars.

ESA/NASA/JPL/ASI/University of Rome

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Images taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express satellite show the marks that an ancient network of rivers have left on the planet’s surface.

The valleys formed as they would on earth, with a strong flow of water carving its way through the landscape.

What is less clear is where the water came from. Due to a lack of knowledge about the past climate of Mars, scientists can not tell whether it came from groundwater, precipitation, melting glaciers or something unheard of.

There is no liquid water on the surface of mars today, though plenty of similar ex-water features have been discovered in recent years, suggesting Mars once had a far wetter and warmer climate.

Each discovery raises further questions about the planet's past atmosphere and scientists ultimately want to know whether or not it would have been suitable for life.

Next year the ESA in collaboration with Russia’s space program Roscomos will launch the ExoMars mission with the primary goal to “address the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars".

Here The Independent has collated images from recently discovered evidence of water on Mars in the gallery above.

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