SPACE — The American Space Agency’s (NASA) Curiosity rover is now entering its twelfth year of mission. The Curiosity rover continues to explore the world of Mars.
Now, Curiosity is entering an area that has never been explored by a rover before. Curiosity will explore an area that scientists believe to be an ancient dry river bed.
This location is called Gediz Vallis. Today, Gediz Vallis is the site of a winding, rock-filled channel.
Initially Curiosity was scheduled for a mission of only two years from launch. However, Curiosity continues to explore the surface of Mars in search of new insights into the Martian environment and the life that may have lived or still lives on Mars.
Since 2014, the rover has been climbing Mount Sharp, which rises 5 kilometers above the rover’s original landing site in Gale Crater. Gediz Vallis meanders across Mount Sharp.
Billions of years ago, Mount Sharp like the rest of Mars would have been much wetter than it is today. Over time, as Mars dried out, wind and residual water eroded the mountains into the layers Curiosity can see today. Scientists believe that some Martian natural force carved the Gedis Vallis channel into the slopes of the Red Planet during this drying period.
There are several scenarios that might create Gediz Vallis. Maybe the wind created Gediz Vallis. However, the sides of the channel are steeper than scientists would expect from a wind-shaped valley.
Therefore, it is possible that the channel was the result of an avalanche from an area higher on the mountain. Or, perhaps more interestingly, perhaps Gediz Vallis was formed by flowing liquid water.
“If these channels or debris piles were formed by liquid water, that’s very interesting. That would mean that at a fairly late point in the Mount Sharp story after a long dry period, the water returned, and in a big way,” said Ashwin Vasavada, scientist Curiosity project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement.
Curiosity will spend months exploring this channel. The rover doesn’t have the capability to climb Mount Sharp, so looking up from the channel is the best way to help scientists learn more about what’s up there.
2024-04-04 07:11:06
#NASAs #Curiosity #Rover #Begins #Explore #Area #Suspected #Dry #Rivers #Mars #Space #Space
