NASA ’s Curiosity rover recently spotted some of the most compelling evidence yet of ancient water on Mars , in the form of rippled rocks shaped by waves .
The ripple form 1000000000000 of years ago , when liquid water still covered the Martian surface . Across Mars , from the Curiosity rover near Gale Crater to Perseverance in Jezero Crater , probes are exploring these ancient waterbeds for intel on Mars ’ geological story and its potential for astrobiology . Might there be fossilise germ among all the red rocks and dust ?
Curiosity began its military mission in 2012 in the low elevations Gale Crater but is now on Mount Sharp , a 3 - mi - high mountain once covered with lakes and streams . If life ever existed on Mars , from what we know of its mien on Earth , these ancient piddle nerve pathway are a just place to calculate .
Water ripples in the rock on Mars, as seen by Curiosity.Image:NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The wanderer spotted the rock textures — small riffle , looking a bit like dry out - up tyre treads — in a stratum of rock on Mount Sharp yell the Marker Band , consort to a NASArelease .
“ This is the best grounds of weewee and undulation that we ’ve seen in the entire mission , ” said Ashwin Vasavada , Curiosity ’s task scientist at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California , in the release . “ We go up through thousands of feet of lake deposits and never go out evidence like this – and now we found it in a stead we expected to be dry . ”
The Marker Band and its environs form in desiccant climates than the areas Curiosity has already been through . In other words , the NASA squad figure the water on Mars may have already vanished by the fourth dimension the rock music currently being study was formed . There areice sheets and ice cap on Mars ’ poles , andmeteorite impact on the satellite have kicked up subterranean icing , but limpid piss has n’t been on the planet for billions of twelvemonth , at least as far as we know . Mars is cold and has a thin atmosphere , so body of water freezes at its control surface , and the planet ’s ancient urine is thought to have mostly been lose to space ( at least 87 % of it , according to NASA ) .
The Marker Band is so tough that Curiosity has neglect to take a sample distribution of it even after several boring attempts , but if the rover is n’t able to get a sample distribution from softer rock , it still has exciting ventures ahead .
The Martian vale of Gediz Vallis holds an assortment of rocky debris scientists believe was drag there by ancient landslides . That makes the valley a deposit of rocks from high on Mount Sharp , regions Curiosity would n’t be able to access . By probing those boulders , scientists will get insights about otherwise untouchable stories from Mars ’ past times .
Though the recently find water ripples are some of the clearest evidence of ancient body of water on Mars , they ’re hardly the first . sink in through for other image that show how water has determine the Martian landscape .
MarsWater on Mars
Daily Newsletter
Get the best tech , science , and acculturation news in your inbox day by day .
News from the time to come , fork up to your present .
You May Also Like
