Washington (EFE) .- The data collected by the Mars rover Curiosity reveal that Mount Sharp, located inside the crater Gale, could be formed by sediments deposited in the bed of a Lake million years ago, NASA reported today.
Team Members Curiosity researcher explained in a press conference that these findings suggest that Mars had a warmer climate that had allowed water systems and lakes for a long period of time.
That time was “enough for sediments formed the mountain,” said Michael Meyer, chief scientist of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA.
Meyer indicated that for researchers is a challenge to decipher how this mountain about 5 miles up composed of layers of rock that could have been made with river sediments and deposited by wind particles are formed.
“The observations we have made to date support this hypothesis,” said John Grotzinger, California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (USA), adding that experts hope to try more analysis over the next year.
Curiosity is investigating sediment layers lower mountain, a section of rocks about 150 meters in training called Murray, that could be superimposed sediments transported by rivers and once the water evaporated molded by the wind.
The other question to be resolved is whether that water existed long enough for microbial life was given.
In previous findings, Curiosity detected elements such as sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon, some essential chemical ingredients for life.
“Mars today is a dry, arid and windy planet, but was once a planet made up of water,” said Ashwin Vasavada, scientific the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA in California, adding that if the hypothesis holds “challenges the notion that the hot and humid conditions were transient, local or only underground on Mars.”
The implication of climate is a key element in this process, according to the expert.
He explained that the atmosphere would be thicker so that temperatures were higher and allow the water to He kept in liquid form “But for now, we do not know how it was achieved,” he said.
Scientists have provided direct Curiosity to higher elevations of the mountain to conduct new experiments to help them determine how the atmosphere and water interacted with these sediments and analyze how it changed the chemistry in lakes along the time.
The rover broke November 26, 2011 on an Atlas rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (USA), and fell on August 6, 2012 in the crater Gale with a mission to find out if the conditions were on Mars to support life.
In its first twelve months, the robot discovered an ancient bed of the watercourse and collected soil samples and sufficient atmosphere to scientists conclude that there may have been life there billions of years ago.
In July 2013, Curiosity concluded his research in the area known as Yellowknife Bay and started journey towards southwest towards the base of Mount Sharp area, where he arrived in September 2014.
Curiosity, with a length of about three meters, has the size of a golf cart and is twice as large and five times heavier than their predecessors, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, launched in 2003.
This is also best equipped robot, with ten instruments tech, as the instrument of XRD (CheMin), which chemically analyzed minerals collected by Curiosity with its robotic arm, or environmental station REMS, designed and built in Spain.
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