You’re an anaerobic microbe sunbathing on a Martian beach billions of years ago listening to the small waves hit the shoreline as you take in the perchlorates in the Martian regolith. This is because while Mars is warm and wet, it still lacks sufficient oxygen, so anaerobic life like yourself doesn’t need oxygen to survive. You’re chilling for several hours and eventually notice the water hasn’t touched you. You remember over-hearing some otherworldly fellows who briefly landed and discussed the landscape didn’t look well formed, so they left. Anaerobic microbes may or may not have existed on Mars billions of years ago (the “otherworldly fellows” might have, though), but scientists have strong evidence that flowing liquid water existed on the surface of ancient Mars. However, there’s been a longstanding debate regarding whether tides helped shape the landscape in Gale Crater and Utopia Planitia, which have been explored by NASA’s Curiosity Rover and China’s Zhurong Rover, respectively.…