NASA’s Perseverance rover confirms past conditions on Mars that could have supported life

A ground-penetrating radar instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected geological structures in Mars’ Jezero Crater that suggest liquid water once flowed on the planet’s surface, creating conditions that may have supported life, Faroese Broadcasting Corporation (KVF) reports.

The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, come from the RIMFAX radar—one of several scientific tools on the Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in 2021. The instrument uses radar waves to map subsurface structures, revealing layers of sediment that indicate the past presence of rivers and deltas.

Jógvan Jákupsson, reporting for KVF, notes that the research team—including Faroese geologist Uni Árting, who works for the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) and the University of Oslo—has determined that liquid water existed on Mars’ surface for a longer period than previously known. These conditions, the study argues, could have been conducive to microbial life.

The paper, titled Ground penetrating radar observations of ancient large-scale deltaic structures in Jezero crater, Mars, provides the first direct subsurface confirmation of the crater’s watery past. Scientists had long suspected Jezero Crater once held a lake, but the radar data now offers concrete evidence of river channels and sediment deposits formed by flowing water.

Árting, a co-author of the study, explained in an interview with KVF that the radar scans reveal “several riverbeds and channels,” which help pinpoint the timeframe during which liquid water was stable on Mars—a critical factor for assessing the planet’s past habitability.

The Perseverance rover, launched in 2020, continues to explore Jezero Crater, searching for signs of ancient life and collecting samples for potential return to Earth.