Mars has potential to sustain life. Scientists have uncovered strange ridge network on Mars from spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet. It is a mystery how ridges were formed and what they may reveal about history of Mars.
Scientists from Arizona state university and from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory lead a team of scientists that set out to discover more about these Martian ridges. As per their findings the ridges on Mars may hold fossilized records of ancient groundwater flowing through them. Scientists have determined there are three stages that were involved to create ridges.
Nearly 14000 scientists from around the world joined in search from the ridge and with the team they were able to map distribution of 952 polygonal ridge network in an area that measures about fifth of Mars’ s total surface area. Most of the ridge network were analyzed are located in ancient, eroded terrain that is approximately 4 billion years old. Mars is believed to have warmer and wetter back then.
Previous research shows those ridges were not covered with layers of dust. As clay form from weathering in the presence of water this suggest they may have been formed by groundwater. A question arises was there once water on Mars and was it suitable for life?
