Perseverance rover confirms existence of ancient Mars lake and river delta

Perseverance touched down in February on the floor of the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater, which was picked primarily because previous observations by Mars orbiters suggested that it hosted a big lake and a river delta in the ancient past. Photos snapped by Perseverance early in its mission, before the car-sized robot even started roving, confirm this interpretation, a new study reports, which was published online today in the journal Science, researchers analyzed early photos that Perseverance snapped of this putative delta from afar with its Mastcam-Z imaging suite and a camera on its rock-zapping SuperCam instrument. These photos captured the edge of the large delta outcrop as well as an isolated butte dubbed «Kodiak,» which the team thinks is an erosional remnant of the same formation. The Kodiak imagery was especially sharp, and the team saw in it distinct layers of sediment that could only have been deposited by a river flowing into a lake.

Credit SPACE.COM

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