“NASA also will need to learn new ways of operating in space, based on self-reliance and increased system reliability”.
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A composite image looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp on Mars was taken September 9 by NASA’s Curiosity rover. The findings follow recent revelations that suggested the existence of ancient lakes on the Martian landscape, as reported by HNGN.
Grotzinger and the Curiosity team analyzed a wide array of geological data collected by the rover and found that layers of material in Gale Crater are indicative of sediment deposits set down through the movements of water.
The Curiosity Rover reached Mars in 2012 after being launched in 2011 and has since then been surprising scientists with its new discoveries.
Professor Sanjeev Gupta, co-author of the study from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial, said: “This study provides stunning evidence that Mars really did sustain a water world for what could have been many thousands or even millions of years”.
“We have tended to think of Mars as being simple,” said lead author Prof. “SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built – able to carry astronauts in NASA’s Orion spacecraft on deep space missions, including to an asteroid and ultimately to Mars”, said the agency in a statement. The latest images from the Curiosity rover confirm that similar pools of water once dominated the landscape of the Gale crater too. Under those conditions, liquid water evaporates quickly. Finally, we saw layers of fine-grained rock that could form as sediment settles out within lakes. During the space race in 1967, the Outer Space Treaty was created, which states that nothing from Earth can come into contact with an outside water source.
These dark, narrow, 100-meter-long streaks confirm evidence that liquid water flows on Mars surface. There is the chance that snowfall and rain could have supplied the lakes, and a few scientists have even theorized that a large ocean north of the crater once existed.
These rocky fragments can contain water, oxygen, precious metals and other elements that could be used to produce fuel and life-support systems in space-at a fraction of the cost it would take to deliver them from Earth.
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“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water, ‘” John Grunsfeld, former astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington D.C. said. We’ll see more details from NASA on their mission to Mars over the next several months and subsequent years. This is a good time to go back to reevaluate all our assumptions. Right now, scientists can’t explain why the planet was warmer – and covered in rivers and lakes – at a time it should’ve been colder. “Something is missing somewhere”, he concluded.
