NASA’s Curiosity rover has a fresh discovery proving that there was indeed water in Ancient Mars. The robot was able to get more substantial evidence when it made a stop on its way to a large mountain in the Red Planet.
The one-ton rover took a break to inspect a group of rocks the past week. It was one of the five scheduled stops on the road to the 5.5-kilometer high Mt. Sharp. Researchers consider the stop over successful as it was able to gather more evidence of water in Ancient Mars.
Dawn Summer, researcher from the University of California and one of the members of the Curiosity Science team, said that they have investigated the “pebbly sandstone deposited by water flowing over the surface, and veins or fractures in the rock. We know the veins are younger than the sandstone because they cut through it, but they appear to be filled with grains like the sandstone."
The Curiosity rover was embarked on the Gale Crater of Mars in August 2012 in order to investigate if there was a time that the planet was able to sustain the existence of microbial organisms. It was able to accomplish that mission March this year after discovering a site, close to the spot where it landed, that was damp and possibly teeming with life billion years ago.
Nine images were captured by the Curiosity’s MAHLI camera or the Mars Hand Lens Imager. It depicts very detailed textures in heaps of rock which compose of tiny pebbles and very minute particles which look like sand. This specific rock is located within the Gale Center is what is known as “Darwin.” The images were taken September 21, 2013.
The team of scientists would also like to familiarize themselves with the geology of the area from Yellowknife Bay and Mount Sharp. That reason led them of planning five pit stops for Curiosity. According to Summer, the stops are necessary fot them to understand the water history in the Gale Center which can help them determine whether water had flowed or not and if there were any rocky sandstone deposits that were simultaneously flowed at the Yellow Knife Bay.
"If the same fluid flow produced the veins here and the veins at Yellowknife Bay, you would expect the veins to have the same composition. We see that the veins are different, so we know the history is complicated. We use these observations to piece together the long-term history," Summer said in a press release.
Curiosity spent four days at Darwin investigating rocks before it continued its Mt. Sharp expedition Sunday. It has accomplished 20 percent of its trek to date.
