NASA Finds Proof Water Existed on Mars - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.
NASA’s mission to Mars has yielded some interesting results.
The Mars rover, named Curiosity, has discovered what scientists have hypothesized for years.
The site where the rover landed had running water billions of years ago that was potentially waist high, and might have even supported life.
Pictures taken by the rover and sent back to NASA scientists on Earth provided the first irrefutable proof of running water.
The round shape, size, and placement of the rocks implies to scientists that running river water probably gave them the smooth texture.
“This is the first time we’re actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars.” said William Dietrich, a professor of geomorphology at the University of California – Berkley and a member of the Curiosity imaging science team at NASA.
The primary goal of the rover’s mission to Mars is to study clay layers in the foothills of the Martian Mount Sharp, an almost three and a half mile high mountain in the Gale Crater.
Since making its landing in August, the Curiosity rover has experienced relatively few problems, much to the surprise of NASA scientists.