WASHINGTON: Nasa’s Curiosity rover has discovered wave-rippled rocks — proof of an historical lake — in an space of the planet anticipated to be drier, the US area company stated Wednesday.
“That is the most effective proof of water and waves that we have seen in the complete mission,” stated Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s challenge scientist at Nasa‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
The rover, which has been exploring Mars since 2012, beamed again beautiful photos of rippled patterns on the floor of rocks brought on by the waves of a shallow lake billions of years in the past.
Curiosity had beforehand discovered proof that lakes as soon as coated components of Mars within the salty minerals left behind after they dried up.
However Nasa scientists have been stunned to search out such stark proof of water within the Gale Crater that the rover is now exploring.
“We have climbed by many lake deposits throughout our mission however have by no means seen wave ripples this clearly,” Vasavada stated in an announcement.
“This was particularly stunning as a result of the world we’re in in all probability fashioned at a time when Mars was changing into extra dry,” he stated.
Curiosity is exploring the foothills of a three-mile (five-kilometer) tall mountain generally known as Mount Sharp.
The rover has additionally noticed particles in a valley that was washed down by moist landslides on Mount Sharp, Nasa stated.
“This landslide particles might be the latest proof of water that we’ll ever see,” Vasavada stated. “It’s going to enable us to check layers increased up on Mount Sharp that we won’t attain.”
Nasa stated Mount Sharp offers a type of “Martian timeline” to scientists with the oldest layers on the backside and youngest on the high.
This enables them to “research how Mars developed from a planet that was extra Earth-like in its historical previous, with a hotter local weather and plentiful water, to the freezing desert it’s as we speak,” it stated.
One other Mars rover, Perseverance, landed on the Pink Planet in February 2021 to search for indicators of previous microbial life.
The multi-tasking rover will gather 30 rock and soil samples in sealed tubes to be despatched again to Earth someday within the 2030s for lab evaluation.
“That is the most effective proof of water and waves that we have seen in the complete mission,” stated Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s challenge scientist at Nasa‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
The rover, which has been exploring Mars since 2012, beamed again beautiful photos of rippled patterns on the floor of rocks brought on by the waves of a shallow lake billions of years in the past.
Curiosity had beforehand discovered proof that lakes as soon as coated components of Mars within the salty minerals left behind after they dried up.
However Nasa scientists have been stunned to search out such stark proof of water within the Gale Crater that the rover is now exploring.
“We have climbed by many lake deposits throughout our mission however have by no means seen wave ripples this clearly,” Vasavada stated in an announcement.
“This was particularly stunning as a result of the world we’re in in all probability fashioned at a time when Mars was changing into extra dry,” he stated.
Curiosity is exploring the foothills of a three-mile (five-kilometer) tall mountain generally known as Mount Sharp.
The rover has additionally noticed particles in a valley that was washed down by moist landslides on Mount Sharp, Nasa stated.
“This landslide particles might be the latest proof of water that we’ll ever see,” Vasavada stated. “It’s going to enable us to check layers increased up on Mount Sharp that we won’t attain.”
Nasa stated Mount Sharp offers a type of “Martian timeline” to scientists with the oldest layers on the backside and youngest on the high.
This enables them to “research how Mars developed from a planet that was extra Earth-like in its historical previous, with a hotter local weather and plentiful water, to the freezing desert it’s as we speak,” it stated.
One other Mars rover, Perseverance, landed on the Pink Planet in February 2021 to search for indicators of previous microbial life.
The multi-tasking rover will gather 30 rock and soil samples in sealed tubes to be despatched again to Earth someday within the 2030s for lab evaluation.
