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SCIENCE
LAKE ON MARS
Mars marvel ... how the Shalbatana lake may have looked. Photo: AFP/University of Colorado at Boulder
JUNE 20, 2009
LOS ANGELES: New images suggest Mars had a sizeable lake on its surface billions of years ago, providing further evidence the planet had a watery past.
Images snapped by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal a 50-kilometre-long canyon where researchers believe water once flowed and apparent beach remnants surrounding a basin.
Scientists have dubbed it the Shalbatana lake for the valley in which it was located.
The findings were published in this week's Geophysical Research Letters.
The lead researcher, Gaetano Di Achille of the University of Colorado at Boulder, estimates the lake formed 3.4 billion years ago, an era of the planet that scientists have generally believed was cold and dry. The lake probably evaporated or froze over, he said.
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