Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens and special commentators for their clue delivery! CTOnews.com, April 26 (Xinhua)-- CTOnews.com learned from the official website of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) that Professor Xiao long's research team has made a new scientific breakthrough and they have found the latest evidence of the recent water activity on Mars.

Recently, the research result of Professor Xiao long's team at the university, "recent Water activity on Mars: evidence of Transverse Wind ridges from the Utopian Plain in the Zhurong Landing area," was published in the Geophysical Research Newsletter in the form of a cover article. The research team identified small polygonal fissures on the surface of the Martian transverse wind ridge for the first time, and found that there may be hydrous sulfate minerals such as gypsum on the surface of the fracture distribution area, in order to understand the Martian surface water activity, it provides a new clue to the key scientific issue of assessing the current habitability of Mars.

The characteristics of water activity on Mars has always been the focus of Mars exploration and research. It is generally believed that surface water activity on Mars has gradually declined since the Noah period (about 3.7 billion years ago). In the Amazon period (about 3 billion years ago to the present), the climate became so dry and cold that liquid water was difficult to stabilize on the Martian surface, while water was mainly stored in the soil and rocks at the Martian poles and below the surface at middle and high latitudes in the form of ice.

Although some studies suggest that Martian gullies and reproducible slope patterns may indicate recent liquid water activity, their causes are still controversial. Overall, geomorphological evidence related to recent Martian water activity is still lacking.

Fig. 1 types and distribution of transverse eolian ridges in the landing area of "Zhurong" in May 2021, the "Zhurong" Mars rover carried by China's "Tianming-1" probe landed in the southern utopian plain, and there were a large number of transverse eolian ridges (TAR) distributed within its landing and inspection range (figure 1). Transverse eolian ridge is a kind of special eolian geomorphology on the surface of Mars. it is an important carrier to study the atmospheric motion and climate characteristics of Mars. In this study, using high-resolution remote sensing data, 354 transverse wind ridges were identified within the range of 2 km × 2 km in the Mars rover landing area, and three types were divided according to their morphological characteristics (figure 1). A two-stage evolution model of transverse wind ridges in this region (figure 4a) was proposed, indicating that a significant change in the prevailing wind direction had taken place in the landing area.

Fig. 2 polygonal fissures on the surface of transverse wind ridges photographed by the Zurong rover

Fig. 3 the comparison between the in-situ spectrum and the laboratory spectrum of the polygonal crack area on the surface of the transverse eolian ridge obtained by the "Zhurong". It can be seen that there may be hydrous sulfate minerals such as gypsum on the surface of the transverse eolian ridge. The research team used the "Zhurong" navigation and topographic camera data to depict in detail the surface morphology of the transverse eolian ridge on the inspection route of the rover. For the first time, small polygonal fissures have been identified on the surface of the Martian transverse wind ridge (figure 2). At the same time, the interpretation of in-situ spectral data shows that there may be hydrous sulfate minerals such as gypsum on the surface of these fissures (figure 3), indicating that water plays an important role in the formation of these polygonal fissures.

Fig. 4 Evolution model of transverse eolian ridges and possible formation mechanism of surface polygonal fissures in the "Zhurong" landing area based on the above analysis results, combined with the geological background of the landing area, it is considered that there may be two causes of these polygonal fissures (figure 4b): groundwater is transported to the surface of transverse eolian ridges through capillarity, and the surface contracts to form polygons in the process of water evaporation. The exchange of water vapor between the surface and the atmosphere leads to the formation of a hardened sandy shell on the surface of the transverse eolian ridge and the rupture of the shell to form a polygonal crack. Under the current Martian environmental conditions, the second genetic mechanism is the most likely.

At the same time, because the transverse wind ridges are relatively young landforms on the Martian surface (perhaps less than 1 million years), and these polygonal fissures were formed in the later stage of the evolution of the transverse wind ridges, therefore, they may indicate the recent Martian water activity and the process of surface-atmospheric water exchange, thus providing clues for the study of the Martian water cycle in the current cold and arid climate.

This achievement is jointly supported by the National key Research and Development Program, the National Natural Science Foundation and the Civil Aerospace pre-Research Project.

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