The rover has arrived at an space that will present proof liquid water flowed on this a part of Mars for for much longer than beforehand thought.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has begun exploring a brand new area of Mars, one that would reveal extra about when liquid water disappeared as soon as and for all from the Pink Planet’s floor. Billions of years in the past, Mars was a lot wetter and doubtless hotter than it’s as we speak. Curiosity is getting a brand new look into that extra Earth-like previous because it drives alongside and finally crosses the Gediz Vallis channel, a winding, snake-like characteristic that – from house, not less than – seems to have been carved by an historical river.
That chance has scientists intrigued. The rover group is looking for proof that will affirm how the channel was carved into the underlying bedrock. The formation’s sides are steep sufficient that the group doesn’t assume the channel was made by wind. Nevertheless, particles flows (fast, moist landslides) or a river carrying rocks and sediment might have had sufficient vitality to chisel into the bedrock. After the channel shaped, it was stuffed with boulders and different particles. Scientists are additionally desirous to study whether or not this materials was transported by particles flows or dry avalanches.
Pan round inside this 360-degree video to see Gediz Vallis channel from the standpoint of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Since 2014, Curiosity has been ascending the foothills of Mount Sharp, which stands 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the ground of Gale Crater. The layers on this decrease a part of the mountain shaped over tens of millions of years amid a altering Martian local weather, offering scientists with a method to research how the presence of each water and the chemical elements required for all times modified over time.
For instance, a decrease a part of these foothills included a layer wealthy in clay minerals the place a number of water as soon as interacted with rock. Now the rover is exploring a layer enriched with sulfates – salty minerals that always kind as water evaporates.
It is going to take months to totally discover the channel, and what scientists study might revise the timeline for the mountain’s formation.
As soon as the sedimentary layers of decrease Mount Sharp had been deposited by wind and water, erosion whittled them down to show the layers seen as we speak. Solely after these prolonged processes – in addition to intensely dry durations throughout which the floor of Mount Sharp was a sandy desert – might the Gediz Vallis channel have been carved.
Scientists assume the boulders and different particles that subsequently stuffed the channel got here from excessive up on the mountain, the place Curiosity won’t ever go, giving the group a glimpse of what varieties of fabric could also be up there.
“If the channel or the particles pile had been shaped by liquid water, that’s actually attention-grabbing. It will imply that pretty late within the story of Mount Sharp – after an extended dry interval – water got here again, and in an enormous method,” stated Curiosity’s undertaking scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
That rationalization can be per one of the vital shocking discoveries Curiosity has made whereas driving up Mount Sharp: Water appears to have come and gone in phases, quite than step by step disappearing because the planet grew drier. These cycles will be seen in proof of mud cracks; shallow, salty lakes; and, instantly under the channel, cataclysmic particles flows that piled as much as create the sprawling Gediz Vallis ridge.
Final 12 months, Curiosity made a difficult ascent to check the ridge, which drapes throughout the slopes of Mount Sharp and appears to develop out of the tip of the channel, suggesting each are a part of one geologic system.
Curiosity documented the channel with a 360-degree black-and-white panorama from the rover’s left navigation digicam. Taken on Feb. 3 (the 4,086th Martian day, or sol, of the mission), the picture reveals the darkish sand that fills one facet of the channel and a particles pile rising simply behind the sand. In the other way is the steep slope that Curiosity climbed to achieve this space.
The rover takes these sorts of panoramas with its navigation cameras on the finish of every drive. Now the science group is counting on the navcams much more whereas engineers attempt to resolve a difficulty that’s limiting the usage of one imager belonging to the colour Mast Digicam, or Mastcam.
Curiosity was constructed by JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For extra about Curiosity, go to:
https://mars.nasa.gov/msl
Andrew GoodJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-2433andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
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