Analysis is revealing similarities between Earth’s Grand Canyon and ones on the purple planet. It is informing future Martian exploration and settlement plans. {Story aired on WeSat on 12/14/24.}
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Scientists are utilizing a few of the latest know-how on Earth to unravel essentially the most historic secrets and techniques of Mars. As Rae Solomon from our member station KUNC studies, synthetic intelligence is uncovering stunning hyperlinks between the 2 planets.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: (As narrator) For hundreds of years, science has studied Mars, the one planet the place life could exist.
RAE SOLOMON, BYLINE: Possibly it is the intriguing purple shade, however us earthlings have all the time been drawn to the planet Mars. Hydrologist Lin Ji is not any exception. The College of Arizona researcher and freshly minted Ph.D. normally research the Decrease Colorado River basin solidly on Earth. However a couple of years in the past, she grew fascinated by satellite tv for pc photographs of the purple planet. That is why she seen one thing fascinating trying down at Arizona’s Santa Cruz River out her airplane window.
LIN JI: I assumed, oh, this Santa Cruz River system appears to be like precisely the identical to the Martian valleys. They each have, like, a tree-like branching river methods. So I spotted that there may have be a connection between the Earth river system and the Mars valley community.
SOLOMON: A connection that spans 140 million miles via the chilly, darkish vacuum of outer area.
LIN: They shared related traits, which point out that they may have an analogous local weather.
SOLOMON: For the Decrease Colorado, meaning an arid local weather, the place rain is uncommon however heavy when it comes and flash flooding so highly effective, it might carve up a panorama. That does not sound very like immediately’s Mars, all chilly and ice-capped with a floor largely devoid of liquid water. However these Martian valleys are billions of years previous. Some scientists say the planet could have been heat again then and water plentiful. Ji’s work suggests there was additionally flash flooding.
LIN: The valley networks on Mars can also be fashioned by high-intensity rainfall.
SOLOMON: Identical to the Decrease Colorado. However river basins aren’t formed by flooding alone, says College of Colorado geologist Lon Abbott. Overlapping forces, like ice age cycles and plate tectonics, are simply as essential.
LON ABBOTT: It is a actually advanced interaction of various elements which have completely different time scales.
SOLOMON: That complexity makes an easy comparability between the 2 planets tough. There’s simply a lot knowledge. So Lin Ji used a brand new instrument constructed for complexity – machine studying. Step 1 – prepare your mannequin on large quantities of information about local weather and river system formations on Earth. Step 2 – unleash it on the geography of Mars.
LIN: To assist inform what local weather may be on the early Mars.
SOLOMON: And if she’s proper in regards to the Martian local weather, Scott Hubbard says that might assist resolve one among humanity’s all-time obsessions.
SCOTT HUBBARD: Was Mars liveable? Was it an surroundings that if life emerged, it could be capable of dwell lengthy and prosper?
SOLOMON: Hubbard had an extended profession at NASA and was the primary director of the company’s Mars program.
HUBBARD: Understanding how the local weather advanced would inform us so much about if life did kind the place it may be immediately.
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SOLOMON: He says people might be only a few years away from placing ft on Martian floor. Anticipating the place life would possibly nonetheless exist there might be the important thing to a profitable mission.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: (As narrator) A planet of wonders.
SOLOMON: For NPR Information, I am Rae Solomon on Earth.
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