Scientists have discovered evidence of wet-dry cycles on Mars — an environment that is favourable for the emergence of life.
New evidence has been found that a wet-dry cycle once existed on Mars — one of the essential things needed for life.
The authors believe the mud patterns indicate there may have even been an “Earth-like climate regime and surface environments favorable to prebiotic evolution”. “This is the first tangible evidence we’ve seen that the ancient climate of Mars had such regular, Earth-like wet-dry cycles,” the paper’s lead author William Rapin said, who is from France’s Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie.
Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California said the finding expanded the kind of discoveries Curiosity had made.“Over 11 years, we’ve found ample evidence that ancient Mars could have supported microbial life. Now, the mission has found evidence of conditions that may have promoted the origin of life, too.”
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