(Image Credit: Michael Lentz/NASA Goddard Conceptual Image Lab)
A recent video produced by NASA’s Goddard Conceptual Image Lab shows what Mars would have been like around 4 billion years ago – a thriving world, with beautiful lakes and rivers.
The stunning animation was produced from existing data collected by NASA’s research, which suggests Mars was full of lakes and waterways.
‘There are characteristic dendritic structured channels that, like on Earth, are consistent with surface erosion by water flows,’ said Dr Joseph Grebowsky of the Goddard Space Flight Center.
Many craters for example, show evidence of crater lakes and channels which would point to water flow towards to crater.
‘Small impact craters have been removed with time and larger craters show signs of erosion by water before 3.7 billion years ago,’ added Dr Grebowsky.
‘Minerals are present on the surface that can only be produced in the presence of liquid water, for example, in hematite and clays.’
The amount of water needed to create such features has been estimated that it would cover the entire planet at about 1.5km deep as an average. That’s alot of water.
Check out the entire article and the cool timelapse video here at the Daily Mail.
