Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
China's Zhurong rover has unveiled possible evidence of an ancient ocean on Mars, with data indicating shoreline-like features on the Red Planet—a potential breakthrough in the quest to understand Mars's water history. (Scientific Reports)
Since landing in 2021, Zhurong’s ground-penetrating radar and cameras have identified crater-like cones, sediment channels, and mud volcanoes around Utopia Planitia, suggesting Mars’s northern plains were once submerged.
According to Bo Wu from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, surface deposits analyzed by Zhurong indicate that Mars’s ocean likely existed 3.68 billion years ago, pointing to a period when water minerals were actively forming.
Credit: NASA
The Martian ocean likely froze for 10,000 to 100,000 years before eventually drying up 260 million years later. These shifts etched ancient coastlines into the Martian landscape, marking major phases of planetary change.
Credit: NASA
Some scientists, like Penn State's Benjamin Cardenas, question Zhurong’s conclusions, arguing that billions of years of erosion may have destroyed ancient shorelines, making it difficult to confirm these findings.
Scientists believe Mars lost much of its water to space, accelerated by solar storms from a young sun that stripped its atmosphere roughly 3 billion years ago, leaving the planet arid and inhospitable.
NASA’s Insight lander previously found evidence that some of Mars’s water seeped underground, filling pores in the crust—a discovery suggesting possible habitats for microbial life, per UC Berkeley’s Michael Manga.
China’s Tianwen 3 mission, now set for 2028, could bring Martian samples back by 2031, fast-tracking Mars sample collection, while NASA’s sample return mission faces delays and cost issues, aiming for Earth delivery by 2040.
NASA is now re-evaluating its Mars Sample Return mission, which originally aimed to bring Perseverance’s samples home, with possible shifts to involve SpaceX’s Starship—a move that may streamline the mission amidst funding challenges.