Water on Mars May Have Covered Third Of Red Planet: Growing Body Of Evidence Suggests Body Of Water

Water may have once flowed on Mars. Scientists have discovered new evidence that water flowed on Mars. Mars may have been covered in an ocean-in fact, a third of the the Red Planet may have been underwater.

NASA scientists used a collection of high-resolution images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Using the orbiter, scientists from the California Institute of Technology found ridge-like features known as inverted channels that are evidence that there was once an ocean floor on Mars. The inverted channels were found in Mars' Aeolis Dorsa region. They seem to be of an ancient river delta.

"This is probably one of the most convincing pieces of evidence of a delta in an unconfined region - and a delta points to the existence of a large body of water in the northern hemisphere of Mars," lead study author Roman DiBiase, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech, said.

Researchers have not fully ascertained how big the body of water once was, but it likely would have flooded the Aeolis Dorsa, which is roughly 38,600 square miles.

"Scientists have long hypothesized that the northern lowlands of Mars are a dried-up ocean bottom, but no one yet has found the smoking gun," study co-author Mike Lamb said to press.

The ridges may be the clues scientists want, as they generally exist where flowing water once was. The inerted channels on Mars change slope and spread out, just as streams do on Earth when they empty into an ocean or lake.

This is just the latest in a growing body of evidence that suggests Mars had water. Scientists also found rocks smoothed by water and other evidence.

"In our work and that of others - including the Curiosity rover - scientists are finding a rich sedimentary record on Mars that is revealing its past environments, which include rain, flowing water, rivers, deltas, and potentially oceans," Lamb told press. "Both the ancient environments on Mars and the planet's sedimentary archive of these environments are turning out to be surprisingly Earth-like."