2023-04-29 17:36:18
Significant amounts of water from these regions may have been transported to lower latitudes, when the planet’s polar caps released large amounts of water vapor, according to researcher Xiaoguang Qin, who led the work. , a few million years ago, following a change in the inclination of the star, exposing them more directly to the sun. The planet’s freezing temperatures condensed drifting water vapor and then let it fall as snow far from the poles, says the site Space.com which relays this research.
The salts in the Martian dunes would then have warmed the fallen snow and caused it to thaw enough to form salt water. The latter would then have evaporated quickly, according to the scientist, leaving behind salt and other newly formed minerals which seeped between the sand grains of the dune, cementing them together to form a crust. The Chinese team suggests conducting research on new missions to detect salt-tolerant microbes there. After all, you never know!
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