Many scientists agree that Mars had water at some point in its history, but the amount of that water that was present on the surface of the Red Planet is still a matter of debate to this day.
Where a team of researchers at the University of Copenhagen discovered that when Mars was a small planet “in its infancy”, it was hit by many icy asteroids, which were carrying huge amounts of water, amino acids and other organic chemicals known to be necessary to create life.
water on Mars
The researchers reached this amazing discovery by analyzing a meteorite that is billions of years old and was once part of the original crust of Mars, and because its surface does not move unlike the surface of the planet Earth, it does not contain tectonic plates, which enables its outer surface to keep a record of the oldest. date him at all.
Where the analysis of this meteorite revealed that up to 4.5 billion years ago from now, the surface of Mars had enough water on its surface to cover the entire planet in an ocean with a depth of 300 meters, said the lead author of the study and director of the Center for Stars and Planets at the University of Copenhagen, Professor Martin Pizarro: “At that time, Mars was subjected to a collision of many asteroids filled with ice, which we estimate occurred within the first 100 years of the evolution of this planet, but what is also interesting is that those asteroids were carrying biologically important organic molecules besides ice and water.” .
Mars collided with another planet
And Pizarro added: “After this period, something catastrophic happened to life that was likely on the surface of the planet Earth, because we believe that there was a massive collision between it and another planet the size of Mars, as it was an active collision that led to the formation of the current Earth-Moon system.” , which probably wiped out all possible forms of life at that time on planet Earth as well.
These results indicate a strong possibility that conditions favorable to life already existed on Mars, long before it existed on Earth.