Gale Crater •

Mars Dunes Reached by Curiosity Rover

July 4, 2016 By Chen Lai Leave a Comment

Researchers discovered that Mars dunes from the Gale Crater are similar to the ones on Earth.

The Curiosity Rover captured images of strange Mars dunes that are sand formations with an unusual profile. These special Mars dunes have a topography that was not found anywhere else on the planet.

The sand structures were found in the Gale Crater, situated in the Aeolis quadrangle. The NASA rover landed on the mountain inside the crater in August 2012 and since then it is exploring Aeolis Mons and its surroundings.

Scientists hope to discover more on the evolution of the Martial atmosphere, which is believed to have caused the sand formations.

Dunes and ripples have also been found on Titan, Venus, and on the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. However, the researchers say that the Mars dunes are unique.

The leading author of the study explains that the dunes found on Earth can also be found on Mars, only much larger. They have one stepper side, affected by frequent avalanches, and a second side that is softer.

The Martian dunes have 10 feet ripples, and it was thought that they were much larger than those on Earth. The long distance between the imager and the surface of the planet made it very difficult to observe the smaller ripples on the surface of Mars.

Curiosity approached the dunes and took images of the crest lines. The researchers noticed that the upper part was sinuous, similar to those on Earth.

There are other details that make Mars dunes almost the same as the ones on Earth, such as the differences in steepness between their sides, and the sand flows.

Experts explain that the formations could have been formed in the same way as those on our planet, by winds that dragged the sand.

Scientists connect the size of the ripples to the force of the Martian winds that sweep the surface. A long time ago, Mars had a thicker atmosphere that did not permit the apparition of small sand waving. Over time, the air became less dense, which led to the creation of finer Mars dunes.

The Curiosity rover took images of Mars dunes as old as 3 billion years. The researchers concluded that the atmosphere of the planet changed very early in its history.

On Mars, the sand dunes create a relief similar to the one found on Earth. Only the ripples are a reminder that the Red Planet has an entirely different structure and history.

After walking around taking pictures of the dune field, Curiosity continued its climb to the lower part of Mount Sharp. The next mission would be to investigate if the environmental conditions created a favorable setting for microbial life, or if the planet had ever been able to foster life.

Image Source: Flickr

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Drills into Mount Sharp, Primary Science Mission Begun

September 26, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

After the successful completion of 2 years on the Mars, approaching ‘Mount Sharp’ target, NASA’s Curiosity Rover has accomplished the task of drilling out a 6cm hole into basal layer projection on Mount Sharp to collect the sample of powered soil with its robotic arms for analysis in its onboard lab.

NASA’s Rover has used a drilling tool to dig out a small hole around the Pahrump Hills area of Mars to get the soil sample. This soil sample allows the researchers to find out whether the Mars had once supported life in any shape prior to its current state.

Indeed, this is not believed to be the first time that NASA’s Curiosity Rover drilled in the Martian rocks to get the soil samples. Although, it’s about the third or fourth time when researchers dig out the rocks in order to collect samples. The earlier collected soil samples proved the evidences of rivers and lakes must have been there at the base of Gale, several billion years ago, researchers claimed.

NASA’s Curiosity rover yet wanders its major destination ‘Mount Sharp’, believing to be 5kms from the Gale Crater that is at the mid of the peak. The handlers told, the rover has been doing remarkably great in its mission and it will likely to cover more grounds to reach Mount Sharp, also gathering samples along the way. The NASA’s Curiosity Rover team thinks that in a period of months or even years, they would be able to gather the fresh and novel sample of rock and soil that might lead to the facts that Mars might have supported life and swarming bodies of water before.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Drilled Hole in Mars to Gather Soil Samples

September 26, 2014 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

After the completion of almost 2 years on the Mars, approaching ‘Mount Sharp’ target, NASA’s Curiosity Rover has accomplished the task of drilling out a 6cm hole within Mars in order to gather the sample of soil for analysis in its onboard lab. The Curiosity Rover has used a drilling instrument in order to dig out a small hole around the Pahrump Hills area of Mars to get the soil sample. This soil sample allows the researchers to find out whether the Mars had once supported life in any shape prior to its current state.

Certainly, it seems not to be the first time that NASA’s Curiosity Rover drilled in the Martian rocks to get the soil samples. Though, it’s nearly third or fourth time, when researchers dig out the rocks in order to collect samples. On the basis of earlier collected soil samples, the researchers concluded that rivers and lakes must have been there at the base of Gale, several billion years ago.

On the other hand, NASA’s Curiosity rover yet wanders its major destination ‘Mount Sharp’, believing to be 5kms from the Gale Crater that is at the mid of the peak. As per the reports of the handlers, the rover has been doing remarkably great in its mission and they are likely to cover more grounds to reach Mount Sharp, also gathering samples along the way. The NASA’s Curiosity Rover team thinks that in a period of months or even years, they would be able to gather the fresh and novel sample of rock and soil that might lead to the facts that Mars might have supported life and swarming bodies of water.

Mars Rover Snooping Lastly Turn Up at Mt. Sharp

September 14, 2014 By Germaine Hicks 1 Comment

NASA’s inquisitiveness rover has lastly reached at its pledged land: the base of Mt. Sharp, the 3-mile-high mound in the middle of Gale Crater, after wandering in the Martian desert for about 25 months.

The onset marks the start of the Mars Science Laboratory rover’s original mission: to read the mountain’s clay-rich lower layers like pages in a history book, pages that could expose signs of life-affable environments on the Red Planet.

A project scientist and Caltech geologist John Grotzinger said, “We have finally arrived at the far frontier that we have sought for so long.”
Receiving to Mt. Sharp has been a long-time pending. Certainly, the trip was delayed in part by a diversion the rover took to seem at a hopeful spot named Yellowknife Bay. Although it charge the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory on half a year, the venture paid off; rocks drilled there exposed a smorgasbord of chemical elements that would have been appropriate for microbial life, if it ever survived.

Grotzinger stated, Now that the scientists know livable environments did survive on the Red Planet, part of the next step will be seeking those fastidious environments that have a most probability of protecting organic molecules.

The rover is finishing in on a spot called as Pahrump Hills, a projection that wasn’t on the real itinerary, a pleased result of the detour snooping took to keep away from sharp rocks that had been causing an shocking quantity of smash up on the rover’s thin wheels. However, this spot will now be the gateway to Mt. Sharp, and it possibly holds Curiosity’s foremost official drilling target. The rover would make it there in the next week or two, Grotzinger said.

Scientists are principally involved in an extension of rock named as the Murray Formation. It will cross en route to its actual stopping point, Murray Buttes. The Murray Formation could give an exceptional wealth of information about the history of habitable environments on Mars, Kathryn Stack, Curiosity rover mission scientist pointed. Nevertheless, the Yellowknife Bay formation where Curiosity found its first life-friendly spot was only 5-meters thick which represents possibly thousands to hundreds of thousands of years of sedimentary deposits. In contrast, The Murray Formation is 200 meters thick.

Stack stated, “We potentially have millions to tens of millions of years of Martian history just waiting for us to explore.”

The hard part would be to decide how much time to allocate to Pahrump Hills, Murray Buttes and the next interesting unit up the slopes, called Hematite Ridge, scientists said. He was mainly interested in the silicon in the upcoming rocks as the element’s distribution can often signal the movement of water, Grotzinger said.

The mission officials also reacted to disapproval from a NASA Planetary Senior Review panel report out this summer. According to the report, the plan to explore Mt. Sharp did not make good use of the rover’s instruments, calling it “a poor science return for such a large investment in a flagship mission.”

Categories