NASA ’s Curiosity rover hasfound evidence of an ancient riverbed on Mars . While it ’s now dried up , it ’s the first ever evidence to prove that running water once poured over the surface of the crimson planet . This is huge .
The picture above shows a rocky outcropping which a squad of NASA scientists has named “ Hottah ” , after Hottah Lake in Canada ’s Northwest Territories . It does n’t seem much , but what you ’re looking at is exposed bedrock , the kind that you see at the bottom of a river .
The basic principle itself is made up of small fragments of rock cement together — what geologist call a sedimentary conglomerate . In the past times , it would have looked flat but the scientists think it must have been disrupt , mayhap by meteorites , to give it a rake . The situation lie between the north brim of Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp .
But the main grounds suggesting that this is a river bottom is … gravel . NASA scientists have been study images of the Lucy Stone cemented into the rock , and their size of it and shape points to the fact that this used to be a tight - feed stream . The pieces of gravel are particularly round , which evoke that they ’ve been transported long distances by body of water ; at up to a couple of inches in size , they ’re definitely too big to have been moved by wind . William Dietrich of the University of California , Berkeley , explains :
“ From the size of gravels it carried , we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per sec , with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep … This is the first time we ’re really seeing water system - transported gravel on Mars . This is a transition from guess about the size of it of streambed fabric to direct observation of it . ”
awing : a rose hip - deep river , decently there on Mars . The next whole tone is for Curiosity to measure the elemental writing of the materials to try and get a better understanding of what the environment used to be like . Of course , where there ’s water , there could ’ve been animation . Mars Science Laboratory Project Scientist John Grotzingerexplains :
“ A long - flowing stream can be a inhabitable surround . It is not our top choice as an surround for saving of organics , though . We ’re still hold up to Mount Sharp , but this is insurance that we have already found our first potentially inhabitable surround . ”
While there ’s still plenty for Curiosity to do , this new determination substantiate that streams and river once flowed on Mars . The implications that has for the one - metre existence of lifespan on Mars are Brobdingnagian . [ NASA ]
look-alike credit : NASA / JPL - Caltech / MSSS
GeologyMarsMars roverriverSpaceStreamWater
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