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Mars valleys may have been shaped by glaciers, study finds

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New episode in the fascinating Martian saga: the networks of valleys of the red planet may have been shaped by glaciers, according to a study published Monday in Nature Geoscience, suggesting that it was then colder than imagined so far.

Since the discovery in 1971 by the American probe Mariner 9 of networks of valleys, these latter fascinate. According to the dominant theory, they would be the result of an erosion of the Martian soil by water which would have circulated on the surface several billion years ago, indicating a climate then hot and humid.

It is indeed widely believed that the Red Planet has in the past possessed abundant water in liquid form, with lakes, rivers and perhaps even a vast ocean that covered most of the northern plains of the planet. .

“For the past 40 years or so, it has been assumed that rivers once flowed on Mars, eroding and creating all these valleys,” says Anna Grau Galofre of the University of British Columbia in Canada, who led the study.

“But there are hundreds of valleys on Mars, and they are very different from each other,” the specialist continues in a statement from the university, suggesting that different processes may have led to their formation.

To find out more, Canadian and American researchers have analyzed, via an algorithm, more than 10,000 Martian valleys, showing, for some, a similarity with the subglacial channels of Devon Island, in the territory of Nunavut, some 1,500 kilometers from the North Pole.

Likewise, some Martian valleys could have been shaped 3.8 billion years ago by glaciers, due to the flow of meltwater. The climate could therefore have been colder than theorized so far, with ice present on the surface of the red planet.

And good news, for the authors of the study, since the ice can act as a protector of the channels, these conditions could have favored the emergence in the past of possible life on Mars.

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