Ancient Mars News

The study offers a potential bridge between the "warm and wet" story told by Martian geology and the "cold and icy" past suggested by atmospheric models.

Researchers also developed a method to measure river paleo-transport direction for a subset of these ridges.

When boron is dissolved in water – becoming borate – it will react with the ribose and stabilize it for long enough to make RNA.

NASA says these results provide insight into the climate history of the Red Planet and suggest the surface conditions at this later time may also have been suitable for microbial life.

The new findings could help reveal if the Martian environment had flowing water and was once habitable.

The impacts would have produced regional hydrothermal systems on Mars similar to those in Yellowstone National Park, which today harbour chemically powered microbes, some of which can survive boiling in hot springs or inhabiting water acidic enough to dissolve iron nails, said study co-author Stephen Mojzsis from the University of Colorado at Boulder.