“We report crusts, cracks, aggregates, and bright polygonal ridges on the surfaces of hydrated salt-rich dunes of southern Utopia Planitia (~25°N) from in situ exploration by the Zhurong rover,” the team announced. “Does liquid water recently exist on the contemporary surface of Mars? This question is critical for understanding the recent climatic evolution of the polar ice caps, the habitable environment, and even the potential for life on Mars,” according to the study, which was led by Xiaoguang Qin, a professor at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics (IGG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). While it’s not clear if the rover will ever wake up, its tantalizing images reveal features on Martian dunes that “were most likely associated with the activity of saline water, indicating the existence of water process on the low-latitude region of Mars” that may have occurred as recently as 400,000 years go,” reports a study published on Friday in Science Advances. Since its landing in 2021, Zhurong has traveled just over one mile through a Martian region called Utopia Planitia, though it has been inactive for almost a year after it was placed in hibernation to protect it from wintery conditions and a large sandstorm.
While those missions have produced revelations about Mars’ deep past, Zhurong has now revealed that the planet may have experienced damp spells in its recent history. NASA’s rover Curiosity has proved that Mars was once habitable, and its successor, Perseverance, is currently looking for soil samples that might preserve fossilized signs of Martian life.
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