Curiosity Rover Findings: Mud Cracks on Mars Surface Suggest Seasonal Weather and Flash Floods

The planet Mars may have experienced seasonal weather patterns or even experienced flash floods. (Photo: NASA)

JAKARTA – The new Curiosity rover shows images of mud cracks on the surface Planet Mars . The description of this condition is one of the proofs that Planet Mars is similar to Earth and can be inhabited by humans.

The mud cracks on the surface indicate that a wet-dry climate cycle occurs on Mars. The red planet may have experienced seasonal weather patterns or even have Flash floods .

Research published in the journal Nature looks at mud fissures as a kind of history of lost water flows on Mars. It is suspected that Mars changed from a planet with a warm and wet climate to a cold and dry place as it is now

“These mud cracks indicate a transitional time, when liquid water was reduced but still active on the Martian surface,” said Nina Lanza, principal investigator of the Curiosity rover’s ChemCam instrument.

The similarity of the surface characteristics of Mars with the characteristics of the wet-dry environment on Earth, which is very conducive to the development of organic molecules and the potential for life, gives a clearer picture of Mars as a habitable planet. The presence of long-term wet environments, such as evidence for ancient lakes on Mars, is well-documented. However, it is not known with certainty whether this condition will last short term or continuously.

The Curiosity rover has spent years exploring the mostly silicate and sulfate terrain of Mars. The way it works marks environmental transitions on the planet’s surface. In this new environment, the research team found changes in mud cracking patterns, indicating a change in the way the surface dries.

This suggests that water is still present on the surface of Mars on an episodic basis, meaning that water could have been there for a while, evaporated, and repeated to form polygons, or mudflats.

“A key focus of the Curiosity mission, and one of the main reasons for choosing Gale Crater as the observation site is to understand the transition from ‘warm and wet’ ancient Mars to the ‘cold and dry’ Mars we see today,” said Patrick Gasda of the Laboratory and Data Science Group. Remote Sensing.

Curiosity was able to observe clayey lake bottom sediments to drier non-lake bottom and sulfate-rich sediments as part of this transition. Soil, initial silt cracks in silt form a T-shaped pattern, but subsequent cycles of wetting and drying cause the cracks to form more patterns. Y-shaped, as observed by Curiosity.

In addition, there is evidence that the mud cracks are only a few centimeters deep, meaning that the wet-dry cycle is seasonal, or perhaps even more rapid. This finding could strengthen the hypothesis that Mars once had a wet climate like Earth, with seasonal or short-term flooding, and Mars may have been able to support life at some point.

(msf)

2023-08-14 06:22:07
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