NASA's Curiosity rover completed one Martian year (687 Earth days) on the Red Planet on June 24. This means the rover has accomplished the mission's main goal of determining if Mars' atmosphere could possibly support life.
One of the main findings made by the rover was the ancient riverbed discovered at its landing site. This site, known as Yellowknife Bay, helped researchers determine that the spot was most likely habitable at one point, a NASA news release reported.
The evidence of the possibility of ancient life came from two mudstones that the rover extracted samples from using its drill. An analysis of these samples suggested the site was once a lakebed containing mild water, which is an essential ingredient for life.
Among a slew of accomplishments, Curiosity drilled and collected a sample of sandstone a site called Windjana; the rover is currently carrying the samples for a follow-up analysis.
"Windjana has more magnetite than previous samples we've analyzed," David Blake, principal investigator for Curiosity's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument at NASA's Ames Research Center, said in the news release. "A key question is whether this magnetite is a component of the original basalt or resulted from later processes, such as would happen in water-soaked basaltic sediments. The answer is important to our understanding of habitability and the nature of the early-Mars environment."
Preliminary indications suggest the rock contains a more diverse mix of clay and mineral than was found in previously drilled rocks. Windjana is believed to contain an abundance of the mineral orthoclase, which is one of the most abundant minerals in the Earth's crust. This finding implies that rock on the Gale Crater Rim, which is believed to be the original source of the rocks, may have undergone multiple processes of melting.
"It's too early for conclusions, but we expect the results to help us connect what we learned at Yellowknife Bay to what we'll learn at Mount Sharp," John Grotzinger, Curiosity Project Scientist at the California Institute of Technology, said in the news release.. "Windjana is still within an area where a river flowed. We see signs of a complex history of interaction between water and rock."
The Curiosity rover will now move westward. The rover has dealt with obstacles such as wheel damage in the past, but the researchers hope the next leg of the journey will go more smoothly.
"We are getting in some long drives using what we have learned," said Jim Erickson, Curiosity Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said in the news release. "When you're exploring another planet, you expect surprises. The sharp, embedded rocks were a bad surprise. Yellowknife Bay was a good surprise."
