Mars Planet Technology
Curiosity rover finds an ancient oasis on Mars Curiosity rover finds an ancient oasis on Mars
  If you could travel back in time 3.5 billion years, what would Mars look like? The picture is evolving among scientists working with... Curiosity rover finds an ancient oasis on Mars

 

If you could travel back in time 3.5 billion years, what would Mars look like? The picture is evolving among scientists working with NASA’s Curiosity rover.

Imagine ponds dotting the floor of Gale Crater, the 100-mile-wide (150-kilometer-wide) ancient basin that Curiosity is exploring. Streams might have laced the crater’s walls, running toward its base. Watch history in fast forward, and you’d see these waterways overflow then dry up, a cycle that probably repeated itself numerous times over millions of years.

That is the landscape described by Curiosity scientists in a Nature Geoscience paper published today. The authors interpret rocks enriched in mineral salts discovered by the rover as evidence of shallow briny ponds that went through episodes of overflow and drying. The deposits serve as a watermark created by climate fluctuations as the Martian environment transitioned from a wetter one to the freezing desert it is today.

Credit MarsNews

 

Condividi:
Google+Tweet about this on Twittershare on TumblrShare on FacebookPin on Pinterest

No comments so far.

Be first to leave comment below.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *