Having water on a neighbouring planet Imagining life on Mars is hardly a "foreign" thought. But today, thanks to NASA's inquisitive Rover, we know that the red planet formerly had water. NASA has released new photographs from the Curiosity Rover's exploration of Mars. According to the report, the pictures are of ripples in the bottoms of long-dry lakes.
“This is the best evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire mission," said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ashwin Vasavada in Southern California. “We climbed through thousands of feet of lake deposits and never saw evidence like this – and now we found it in a place we expected to be dry."
NASA's Curiosity rover has been exploring Mars' Gale Crater for more than a decade.
"Billions of years ago, waves on the surface of a shallow lake stirred up sediment at the lake bottom, over time creating rippled textures left in rock," NASA said in a statement on Wednesday.
Ripple patterns in these photos are unexpectedly definitive proof that liquid water exists on Mars.
Mount Sharp, the enormous peak at the crater's centre, is approaching, and Curiosity is making its way down to its lower levels. The rover's mission includes determining whether or not this location was ever suitable for the survival of microorganisms. A key part of the expedition is learning about the crater's water history.
NASA claims that the 5-kilometre-tall (16-mile) Mount Sharp was originally riddled with lakes and streams that would have given a rich habitat for microbial life, should any have evolved on the Red Planet.
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“The wave ripples, debris flows, and rhythmic layers all tell us that the story of wet-to-dry on Mars wasn’t simple," Vasavada said. “Mars’ ancient climate had a wonderful complexity to it, much like Earth’s."
Gediz Vallis, a valley on Mars, has provided scientists with another more hint about the planet's wet past. The valley was shaped by the wind, but a channel flowing across it from higher up on Mount Sharp is believed to have been eroded by a tiny river. Scientists believe that wet landslides also occurred in this area, depositing stones and debris the size of cars at the valley floor.
