Jezero’s ancient waterways
The Mars 2020 mission team selected Jezero Crater as Perseverance’s landing spot for a very specific (read: aqueous) reason. In its ancient past, scientists think Jezero was an ancient lake fed by many waterways. On its western end, those waterways took the form of a river delta, long since dried up.
In May, Perseverance (finally out of the crater and into the delta) found evidence that at least one of the rivers flowing into Jezero was deeper and more turbulent than previously thought. The energetic water probably even carried boulders from farther off in the Martian landscape into the crater.
More imaging of the area will improve scientists’ ability to reconstruct that ancient fluvial scene.
