| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Curiosity Finds Evidence of An Ancient Streambed on Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named “Hottah” after Hottah Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech
The Curiosity rover has come across a place in Gale Crater where ankle-to-hip-deep water once vigorously flowed: an ancient streambed containing evidence of gravel that has been worn by water. At a press briefing today, members of the Mars Science Laboratory team said the rover has found “surprising” outcrops and gravel near the rover landing site that indicate water once flowed in this region, and likely flowed for a long time.
“Too many things that point away from a single burst event,” said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. “I’m comfortable to argue that it is beyond the 1,000 year timescales, even though this is very early on in our findings.”
(…)
Read the rest of Curiosity Finds Evidence of An Ancient Streambed on Mars (922 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments |
Post tags: Mars, Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity Rover, mission
Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
2012-09-28 10:10:46
Source: http://www.universetoday.com/97620/curiosity-finds-evidence-of-an-ancient-streambed-on-mars/
Source:
