NASA’s Curiosity Searches for New Clues About Mars’ Ancient Water
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That explanation would be consistent with one of the most surprising discoveries Curiosity has made while driving up Mount Sharp: Water seems to have come and gone in phases, rather than gradually disappearing as the planet grew drier. These cycles can be seen in evidence of mud cracks; shallow, salty lakes; and, directly below the channel, cataclysmic debris flows that piled up to create the sprawling Gediz Vallis ridge.
Last year, Curiosity made a challenging ascent to study the ridge, which drapes across the slopes of Mount Sharp and seems to grow out of the end of the channel, suggesting both are part of one geologic system.
Viewing the Channel Up Close
Curiosity documented the channel with a 360-degree black-and-white panorama from the rover’s left navigation camera. Taken on Feb. 3 (the 4,086th Martian day, or sol, of the mission), the image shows the dark sand that fills one side of the channel and a debris pile rising just behind the sand. In the opposite direction is the steep slope that Curiosity climbed to reach this area.
The rover takes these kinds of panoramas with its navigation cameras at the end of each drive. Now the science team is relying on the navcams even more while engineers try to resolve an issue that is limiting the use of one imager belonging to the color Mast Camera, or Mastcam.
More About the Mission
Curiosity was built by JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more about Curiosity, visit:
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