Long ago, a vigorous river filled an expansive Martian lake. Now, a NASA robot has rumbled through this ghost of Mars’ water-rich past.
In early June, the space agency’s Perseverance rover drove across the Neretva Vallis river channel, now a wide, dried-up waterway. The Mars robot, en route to examine new areas of interest, looked up the channel and captured a rich Martian desert vista, home to the once swiftly moving water.
Neretva Vallis once fed water into Mars’ Jezero Crater, a region harboring a river delta and lake some 22 miles wide. The rocks left over preserve evidence of where primitive Martian life could have potentially thrived — if any ever existed, that is.
“This ancient river channel — which carried most of the water that flowed into Jezero Crater billions of years ago — is filled with intriguing boulders,” NASA said.
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