Data collected by the Curiosity Rover evoke Mars once featured a moderate clime capable of fostering lakes of fluent urine and even a Brobdingnagian ocean , and that this mood could have extended to many part of the Red Planet .
NASA ’s Curiosity Rover is presently look into the lowest aqueous layer of Mount Sharp , a section of rock 500 feet ( 150 meter ) high known as the Murray formation . watching taken by the robotic investigation propose the lot was raise by sediments deposited in a expectant lake layer over decade of millions of years . The observation powerfully suggests that ancient Mars keep a long - lasting urine - friendly climate .
harmonise to NASA scientists , it ’s an hypothesis that ’s gainsay the feeling that tender and wet condition were transeunt , local , or only underground . It now seem that Mars ’ ancient , chummy atmosphere raised temperatures above freezing globally , but NASA scientist are n’t entirely sure how the atmosphere produce the required effects .
A Mountain in a Crater
Scientists have struggled to excuse why the mountain sits inside a crater . Last yr , a study suggest that the 3.5 - mile - tallMount Sharp shape as strong wind carried dust and sand into the crater in which it rest . It was actually bad news show at the time because it suggested that the Gale Crater probably never contain a lake , which was one of the chief reasons why NASA send off Curiosity there in the first space .
Did NASA transport the Curiosity Rover to the wrong position ?
But this fresh psychoanalysis has revivify an older theory which suggests that Mount Sharp is the eroded remnant of aqueous layers that once filled the volcanic crater — layers of silt that were to begin with deposit on a massive lakebed .
Thanks to on - the - primer coat observations made by Curiosity , NASA scientist have now caught a glimpse of Mount Sharp ’s grim flank , which feature 100 of sway layers . These layers , which alternate between lake , river , and hint deposition , bear witness to the retell filling and dehydration of a Martian lake . river carry George Sand and silt to the lake , stick the sediments at the mouthpiece of the river to form delta . It was a cycle that repeated over and over again .
“ The neat matter about a lake that occurs repeatedly , over and over , is that each prison term it comes back it is another experiment to tell you how the environment work , ” noted Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger in a NASAreport . “ As Curiosity climbs higher on Mount Sharp , we will have a serial of experiments to show patterns in how the atmospheric state and the water and the deposit interact . We may see how the chemistry commute in the lakes over time . This is a hypothesis put up by what we have observe so far , providing a framework for quiz in the approaching twelvemonth . ”
After the sediments season to rock , the result layers of deposit were sculpted over time into a mountainous shape by wind erosion that chip at away the material between the crater circumference and what ’s now the edge of the mountain .
Greater Potential for Life?
The new find has major implication for our intellect of the Red Planet . It suggests Mars was far warmer and surface-active agent in its first two billion years than previous assumed . It also paint a picture that Mars have a vigorous and dynamical global hydrological oscillation that involved rains or snows to wield such moderate atmospheric condition .
It also think of that Mars may have featured an ocean somewhere on its surface . And in fact , asnotedby NASA scientist Ashwin Vasavada , “ If we have a long - endure lake for one thousand thousand of year , the atmospheric humidity practically want a brook body of water system like an sea to keep Gale from evaporating . ”
queerly , while evidence forliquidwateron the control surface continues to go up , simulation of the ancient Martian mood have yet to show the conditions that could have actually produced long period warm enough for stable surface water .
This Could Finally Explain How Mars get Its Liquid Water
Whoa , Mars might have as much water underground as Earth does
fit in to Vasavada , even when accounting for a stocky atmosphere of carbon paper dioxide and other glasshouse gas , framework ca n’t seem to upraise world temperatures high enough .
The researchers will keep on to speculate these questions as oddment uncovers more invaluable information .
[ ViaNASA ]
AstrobiologyAstronomyExogeologyhabitabilityMarsScienceWater on Mars
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , scientific discipline , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
