The Mars rover has found evidence of an ocean on Mars: here's what we know (photos).

Currently, Mars is a dry and desolate world, but there is a hypothesis that at one time, the planet's surface was covered with abundant liquid water, including a vast ocean. New analysis of data from the Chinese rover Zhurong suggests that such an ocean indeed existed several billion years ago. This research has been published in the journal Scientific Reports, according to ScienceAlert.

The theory that billions of years ago, an ocean of liquid water covered approximately 30% of Mars' surface has sparked debates within the scientific community for many years. Nevertheless, in recent years, various rovers have provided evidence that liquid water did exist on the Red Planet, particularly with earlier findings of ancient lakes and rivers.

The new analysis of data from the Chinese rover Zhurong indicates that Mars also had a huge ocean that vanished billions of years ago, leaving behind some geological features.

The Zhurong rover landed in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars' northern hemisphere in May 2021 and collected valuable data on the planet for a year. One of the rover's objectives was to find signs of ancient water on Mars and to understand why it disappeared. The data collected by the rover is still being studied by researchers. It is worth noting that the landing site of the Chinese rover was chosen deliberately, as observations from orbital spacecraft indicated signs of water in this region in the distant past.

According to the authors of the study, geological features around the rover's landing site suggest the existence of an ancient shoreline. Specifically, various depressions and flowing channels were discovered. Previous research has shown that such features could have formed on Mars in areas where there was once a significant amount of liquid water.

Scientists state that data collected not only by the rover but also by the Tianwen-1 orbital spacecraft indicate that Mars had an ocean of liquid water at a time when the Red Planet was becoming colder and had lost part of its atmosphere.

Researchers believe that a massive ocean formed in the Utopia Planitia region as a result of flooding approximately 3.7 billion years ago. However, it froze and disappeared around 3.4 billion years ago, leaving behind a shoreline.

At the same time, scientists emphasize that they do not claim that an ocean on Mars definitely existed, but there are signs of it. To confirm these conclusions, it is necessary to collect rock samples from this region and bring them back to Earth for analysis, which would finally provide a definitive answer to whether there was an ocean of liquid water or not.

Like Earth, Mars formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago and initially had a warm climate and a thick atmosphere, which allowed water to remain in liquid form on the planet's surface, according to scientists. However, when this potential ocean existed, climate changes likely began on Mars, leading it to become a less hospitable planet, as the authors of the study suggest.

Because water is a key component for the emergence of life, it is hypothesized that microbial life may have existed on Mars billions of years ago. Life on Earth originated in the oceans, so evidence of a potential ocean on Mars suggests that extraterrestrial life could have arisen on the Red Planet under similar conditions.