China’s Zhurong rover is equipped with a ground-penetrating radar system that allows it to peer beneath the surface of Mars.
Researchers have announced new results from a scan of Zhurong’s landing site on Utopia Planitia, saying they have identified an irregular polygonal wedge located at a depth of about 35 meters in the robot’s path. Ta.
The diameter of objects ranges from centimeters to tens of meters. Scientists believe the buried polygons were created by freeze-thaw cycles on Mars billions of years ago, but they could also be volcanic in origin, caused by cooling lava flows.
The Zhurong rover landed on Mars on May 15, 2021, making China the second country to successfully land a rover on Mars.
Named after the Chinese god of fire, this cute rover will explore the landing site, send back photos (including a selfie of the lander taken with a remote camera), study the Martian terrain, and Measurements were made with medium radar (GPR) equipment.
Zhurong’s primary mission lifespan was three months on Earth, but it operated successfully on Earth for just over a year before entering a planned hibernation. but, There has been no news from the probe since May 2022.
Researchers at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who worked on the Zhurong data, say GPR is an important complement to orbital radar exploration by missions such as ESA’s Mars Express and China’s own Tianwen-1. Stated.
They said in-situ GPR surveys can provide important local details of shallow structure and composition within about 100 meters of depth along the rover’s transverse direction.
Utopia Planum is a vast plain within Utopia, the largest known impact basin on Mars (also in the solar system) with an estimated diameter of 3,300 km. The rover traveled a total of 1,921 meters during its lifetime.
Researchers led by Lei Zhang This is what he said in an article published in . Nature, The spacecraft’s radar detected 16 polygonal wedges within a distance of about 1.2 kilometers, suggesting that similar landforms are widespread beneath Utopia Plain.
These detected landforms were probably formed on Mars during the late Hesperian to early Amazonian periods, between 3.7 and 2.9 billion years ago, and are thought to have been formed “probably with the end of an ancient humid environment.” The paleopolygonal landforms were then buried by later geological processes, with or without erosion.
![Illustration of four models of polygon formation](https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2023/11/polygon_terrain_model_mars.jpg)
Polygon-type landforms have been observed across several regions of Mars; from Many missions so farThis is the first time that signs of buried polygon features have been observed.
Buried polygonal landforms require a cold environment, which may be related to water/ice freeze-thaw processes in early Mars’ southern Utopian plains, the researchers wrote.
“The possibility that the water and ice necessary for the freeze-thaw process within the wedge is present is due to moisture movement by cryogenic suction from Mars’ underground aquifers, snowfall from the air, or steam due to interstitial ice deposition. “This may have resulted from dissemination,” the paper said. I will explain.
Previous research from Zhurong radar data Multiple floods occurred during the same period, indicating the formation of several layers beneath the surface of the Utopian Plain.
on the other hand, new documentr shows that the most likely formation mechanism is shrinkage of the soil due to dry and wet sediments, giving rise to mud cracks, whereas shrinkage due to cooling of the lava leads to thermal shrinkage cracks. may have occurred.
In any case, the researchers point out that major changes in Mars’ climate are responsible for the formation of the polygons.
“The subsurface structure of the cladding covering the buried paleopolygonal terrain suggests that significant paleoclimatic changes occurred some time later,” the researchers wrote.
“The vertical contrast at a depth of about 35 meters represents significant changes in water activity and thermal conditions during ancient Mars, suggesting climate change at low to mid-latitudes.”
This article was first published today’s universe.read Original work.