Mars had two tsunamis three billion years ago?


Interpretation of the images — captured from the surface of red planet — by the scientists who have been studying the surface of the planet since many decades reveal that Mars has had two tsunamis three billion years ago. Satellite data corroborating the interpretation is about the redistribution of sediments over a large region along the border of the Martian lowlands.

The US led team which has arrived at this conclusion has a decisive reason to believe this. They say an asteroid or a comet strike may have caused the giant waves, and this may have been the Martian Tsunami which happened when the planet was wetter, and temperatures were tolerable. Signs of life perhaps will have to wait since the tsunami may mean there was an ocean or water body that was of a massive size and this may also have nourished life in some form.

Today, thanks to the arid surface and intolerable temperature, Mars is a big hole of dust. However, the water body, according to scientists may have existed in the lowlands of Mars in its northern hemisphere. But, the only aspect that can refute this interpretation is the absence of a shoreline to indicate the border or water.

The team, working with Dr Alexis Palmero Rodriguez from the Planetary Science Institute in Tuscan, Arizona has published their work in the journal of scientific reports. The work centers around two connected regions of Mars known as Chryse Planatia and Arabia Terra.

The team says their work would reduce the uncertainty that surrounds the hypothesis of ocean. The first event, feel the scientists may have occurred few billion years ago when the planet could host water. This is similar to the context of early evolution of earth conditions. The second event, the scientists explain, happened a few million years later when the planet was significantly cooler. This time around, the tsunami wave likely froze and propagated across the land surface.

The team concluded on the energetics of the impacts and their ensuing Tsunamis based on the pattern and scale of sediment distribution. The waves, which were probably 50m to 120m in height, produced craters that were probably 30km across.

Corroborating this, is the investigations done by Nasa’s Curiostity Rover at Gale Crater, which was an insight into the deep bowl that likely housed the persistent lakes. And this holding of water could have been possible only if there was a robust hydrological system on Mars cycling moisture between its atmosphere and land surface.