Scientists discovered signs that water may have been on Mars after observing data collected from China's Zhurong rover.
According to the findings, the presence of water may have been widespread and very recent.
The observations also help conclude potentially fertile areas in the hot regions of Mars. The data also suggests suitable conditions may have existed for life on Mars, however, further study into the matter is required.
The mission leaders said that the Zhurong rover went into hibernation a year ago for Martian winter and has yet to come out.
Zhang Rongqiao, the mission's chief designer, said "Its solar panels are likely covered with dust, choking off its power source and possibly preventing the rover from operating again."
As Zhurong was hybernated, it collected information about salt-rich dunes with cracks and crusts. According to researchers, it was likely mixed with melting morning frost or snow as recently as a few hundred thousand years ago.
Scientists have estimated that the cracks and other dune features formed in Mars' Utopia Planitia — a vast plain in the northern hemisphere — in sometime between 1.4 million to 400,000 years ago or even younger.
They opined that Mars' conditions may have been similar to that of now — with rivers and lakes dried up and no longer flowing as they did billions of years earlier.
The Beijing-based team stated, in a study published in Science Advances,that studying the structure and chemical makeup of these dunes can provide insights into the possibility of water activity during this period.
The water was not directly detected by the Chinese rover in the form of frost or ice. However, computer simulations and observations by other spacecraft at Mars indicate that even nowadays at certain times of the year, conditions could be suitable for the water to appear, Qin said.
The Chinese scientists said: "Small pockets of water from thawing frost or snow, mixed with salt, likely resulted in the small cracks, hard crusty surfaces, loose particles and other dune features like depressions and ridges."
According to them, the wind is not the cause, as well as frost is made of carbon dioxide, which makes up the bulk of Mars' atmosphere.
China’s Zhurong — a six-wheeled rover named after a fire god in Chinese mythology — was launched in 2020. It arrived on Mars in 2021 and spent a year wandering the red planet before it went into hibernation last May.
The rover had functioned more than it was expected travelling more than a mile (1,921 meters).