Orbital remote sensing of impact-induced hydrothermal systems on Mars

Introduction—First Billion Years: Habitability

“…Depending on the characteristics of the system, they can survive for as little as 1500 years or as long as ∼2.3 million years (Jõeleht et al , 2005 ; Kring et al , 2020 ). On Earth there are ∼70 (out of the 180 total on the planet) known impact craters with evidence of hydrothermal activity and there are numerous studies of putative impact-generated systems on Mars and other potentially habitable worlds in our Solar System (Osinski et al , 2013 ; Carrozzo et al , 2017 ; Bowling et al , 2019 ; Schenk et al , 2019 ; Singh et al , 2019 ).…”

“…Due to this potential for habitability, investigations of hydrothermal activity have been a top priority for exploration of the martian crust (Schulze-Makuch et al , 2007 ). On Mars we see a growing body of evidence of past hydrothermal features in numerous places, including the Gusev Crater, Arabia Terra, and even the Mars, 2020 landing site: Jezero Crater (Allen and Oehler, 2008 ; Schmidt et al , 2008 ; Ruff et al , 2011 ; Filiberto and Schwenzer, 2013 ; Arvidson et al , 2014 ; Turner et al , 2016 ; Carrozzo et al , 2017 ; Ruff et al , 2019 ; Singh et al , 2019 ; Tarnas et al , 2019 ; Brown et al , 2020 ). We also see a growing body of evidence for the possibility of hydrothermal systems on icy/ocean worlds in our Solar System (Neveu et al , 2015 ; Sparks et al , 2017 ; Waite et al , 2017 ; Bowling et al , 2019 ; Schenk et al , 2019 ; Castillo-Rogez et al , 2020 ).…”