Scientists from my home state of Colorado have uncovered the first definitive evidence that a lake once existed on Mars, perhaps as far back as 3 billion years ago.
The research team, based at the University of Colorado, identified shorelines of an ancient lake that would have been roughly the size of Lake Champlain (which straddles the northeastern U.S.-Canadian border).“Finding shorelines is a Holy Grail of sorts to us,” said Brian Hyneck of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. “Not only does this evidence prove that there was a long-lived lake system on Mars, but we can see that the lake formed after the warm, wet period is thought to have dissipated.”
So what caused this Martian lake to go away? Some of the clues point to either evaporation or freezing due to abrupt climate change. Planetary scientists like Hyneck will be studying that evidence, and more, in the weeks and months ahead.