November 9, 2022
By Zubi
Researchers say they have discovered new evidence that Mars once had a large northern ocean.
The discovery adds to existing evidence that ancient Mars had the right conditions to support some form of life.
Today Mars has a cold, desert climate. Any water is treated as ice because of the extremely cold temperatures of the planet.
There is abundant evidence that rivers, lakes and even oceans once existed on Mars.
For example, a 2015 study by the US space agency NASA suggested that 4.3 billion years ago.
Mars had an ocean that covered about half of Mars' northern hemisphere.
Another NASA-backed study published estimated that most of the planet's northern hemisphere had a climate similar to that of present-day Earth.
At that time, Mars' atmosphere was much denser than it is today and had an active, northern ocean, the study said.
The team collected data from satellite photos of Mars. They then combined these images to create a topographic map of the planet's northern hemisphere.
The researchers said they were able to piece together evidence of shorelines sitting on the edge of a massive body of water three and a half billion years ago.