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Curiosity Rover finds new indications of water on Mars
New information from NASA's Curiosity Rover suggests that Mars may once have had large, long-lasting lakes above ground. That would challenge the more popular theory that water on the planet was only underground, or only appeared in a few areas for a short amount of time.
The key to this latest theory is Mount Sharp, which stands 3 miles tall and sits in the red planet's Gale Crater. But Mount Sharp is a curious formation: The layered mountain is made of different kinds of sediment. Some layers were probably deposited by a surrounding lake bed, and other seem more likely to be the result of river or wind deposits.
Now, NASA scientists believe that a large lake in the Gale Crater — or even a series of lakes that evaporated and then reformed — caused the mountain's unusual formation.
To have liquid water on the surface, Mars would have had a much warmer, heavier atmosphere than it does now. NASA scientists still aren't sure how that atmosphere formed, or why it changed. But based on Curiosity's readings around the Murray formation — a section of rock 500 feet high — it seems that the crater lake filled with sediment (carried in by rivers) over and over. Once this sediment reached a certain height, the hardened sediment was eroded by wind, eventually forming the mountainous shape we now see.
Read more from here
Curiosity Rover finds new indications of water on Mars - The Washington Post
New information from NASA's Curiosity Rover suggests that Mars may once have had large, long-lasting lakes above ground. That would challenge the more popular theory that water on the planet was only underground, or only appeared in a few areas for a short amount of time.
The key to this latest theory is Mount Sharp, which stands 3 miles tall and sits in the red planet's Gale Crater. But Mount Sharp is a curious formation: The layered mountain is made of different kinds of sediment. Some layers were probably deposited by a surrounding lake bed, and other seem more likely to be the result of river or wind deposits.
Now, NASA scientists believe that a large lake in the Gale Crater — or even a series of lakes that evaporated and then reformed — caused the mountain's unusual formation.
To have liquid water on the surface, Mars would have had a much warmer, heavier atmosphere than it does now. NASA scientists still aren't sure how that atmosphere formed, or why it changed. But based on Curiosity's readings around the Murray formation — a section of rock 500 feet high — it seems that the crater lake filled with sediment (carried in by rivers) over and over. Once this sediment reached a certain height, the hardened sediment was eroded by wind, eventually forming the mountainous shape we now see.
Read more from here
Curiosity Rover finds new indications of water on Mars - The Washington Post
