NASA
Mars rover finds key evidence for lake at landing site
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[December 09, 2014]
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Billions
of years ago, a lake once filled the 96-mile- (154-km) wide crater being
explored by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, bolstering evidence that the
planet most like Earth in the solar system was suitable for microbial
life, scientists said on Monday.
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The new findings combine more than two years of data collected by
the rover since its sky-crane landing inside Gale Crater in August
2012.
Scientists discovered stacks of rocks containing water-deposited
sediments inclined toward the crater’s center, which now sports a
three-mile (5 km) mound called Mount Sharp. That would mean that
Mount Sharp didn’t exist during a period of time roughly 3.5 billion
years ago when the crater was filled with water, Curiosity
researchers told reporters during a conference call.
"Finding the inclined strata was ... a complete surprise,” said lead
scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.
"Sedimentary geology ... is the cutting edge for trying to
understand the Earth. When oil companies collect seismic surveys
across places, they are looking for inclined strata because … then
you get geometry that tells you where the rocks are that you're
looking for," he added.
Shortly after landing, Curiosity found that Mars once had the
chemical ingredients and the environmental conditions needed to
support microbial life, fulfilling the primary goal of its mission.
The rover then began driving toward Mount Sharp to look for other
habitable niches and learn if the life-friendly environments
actually existed long enough for life to evolve, a complicated
question since scientists don’t even know how long it took for life
to form and take hold on Earth.
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“The size of the lake in Gale Crater and the length of time and
series that water was showing up implies that there may have been
sufficient time for life to get going and thrive,” said NASA's Mars
Exploration Program scientist Michael Meyer.
The new studies, which have not yet been published, point to a
series of wet and dry times at Gale Crater, challenging a previously
held notion that Mars’ period of warm climate was early and
relatively short-lived, scientists said.
"All that driving we did ... just didn’t get us to Mount Sharp. It
gave us the context to appreciate Mount Sharp,” Grotzinger said of
the rover, which has traveled around 5 miles (8 kms) since landing
on Mars in 2012.
(Reporting by Irene Klotz; editing by Andrew Hay)
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