For years scientists provide data on the existence of a large ocean in the north of Mars and now, thanks to technology and the highest quality of images, a group of scientists has found that the planet suffered at least two tsunamis caused meteor that destroyed its shores.
These are some of the findings of a study published in the journal Scientific Reports (the Nature group), led by Joseph Alexis Palmero Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute (Arizona, USA), and in which scientists from the Centre for Astrobiology participated ( CAB) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).
about 3,400 million years ago there was severe flooding on Mars were assumed to be the origin of the ocean that existed in the north hypothesis that scientists pose for decades.
While the red planet that area is topographically very depressed-which is compatible with the existence of an ocean-, scientists have never clearly identified shorelines, those footprints on the ground that would prove that Mars harbored the sea.
This study "provides a simple solution" to this problem, tells Rodriguez in a press release from the American center.
Thus, researchers have documented two events of tsunami with waves up to 120 meters high and separated by a period of several million years that would have destroyed the coast of that ancient ocean on Mars.