rivers. This included historical data from as early as the fifth century combined with modern imagery dating back to 1939. Of course, few data points were available from Mars, so the researchers retraced the course of six Martian riverbeds: Preserved relics of ancientPreviously, scientists thought a river's sinuosity decreased as it flowed downstream — but the authors' results disagreed.
On both Earth and Mars, they found each studied river fit into one of two patterns. One group of rivers kept relatively steady sinuosity, while the other group actually saw increased sinuosities as they meandered toward the ocean. On Earth, this knowledge could help understand how rivers behave, helping humans plan for future infrastructure projects — and future natural disasters. And on Mars, it could help planetary scientists paint a picture of what the planet looked like during an era before human existence.