Curiosity Has Made a Large Discovery at Its Main Mission Goal on Mars

Clay is an enormous deal on Mars as a result of it typically kinds involved with water. Discover clay, and you’ve got often discovered proof of water. And the character, historical past, and present water funds on Mars are all vital to understanding that planet, and if it ever supported life.

Proper now, MSL Curiosity is at Mt Sharp inspecting rocks for clay. Orbiters have been the primary to search out proof of clay at Mt Sharp. When NASA selected Gale Crater as MSL Curiosity’s touchdown web site, the clay at Mt Sharp contained in the crater was one of many targets.

Now Curiosity has sampled two of the rocks in what NASA’s calling the ‘clay-bearing unit’ and so they’ve confirmed the presence of clay.

In truth, the 2 rocks present the very best concentrations of clay that Curiosity has discovered to this point. The rocks are known as “Aberlady” and “Kilmarie.” They’re situated on the decrease a part of Mt Sharp, which is the mission’s main goal.

(NASA/JPL)

Mt Sharp rises 5.5 km (18,000 ft) above the crater flooring, which means it’s an accessible, layered document of Martian geology. Over time, wind has uncovered its totally different layers, making them straightforward targets for Curiosity’s drill.

Scientists are excited by Mt Sharp, additionally known as Aeolis Mons, due to how they assume it fashioned. Gale Crater is an historical influence crater that was possible crammed with water, and so they assume that Mt Sharp fashioned over a time interval of two billion years, as sediment was deposited on the backside of the lake.

It is potential that at one time all the crater was crammed with sediment, which steadily eroded, leaving Mt Sharp behind.

There’s some uncertainty across the timeline of Mt Sharp’s formation, which is without doubt one of the issues MSL Curiosity hopes to uncover. In any case, Mt Sharp itself seems to be an eroded mountain of sediment, and as Curiosity continues its work, scientists might lastly get a clearer image of how precisely it fashioned.

Curiosity’s new findings present that there was as soon as an abundance of water in Gale Crater, as anticipated. However apart from that, the small print are nonetheless to be decided.

It appears that evidently these clay-rich rocks on the decrease vary of the mountain fashioned as sediment on the backside of a lake. Over geological time intervals, water and sediment work together to type clays.

Discovering particular sorts of clays at particular layers tells scientists in regards to the timeline of Martian water. We all know that the mountain has totally different layers containing totally different minerals.

As talked about, the decrease layers comprise clays, however above which are layers containing sulfur, and above which are layers containing oxygen-bearing minerals. The sulfur signifies that the realm dried out, or the water turned extra acidic.

Gale crater additionally incorporates a river channel known as Gediz Vallis Channel, which fashioned after the clay and sulfur layers. That channel can also be a chunk of the puzzle, and Curiosity’s process is to proceed its method up Mt Sharp, sampling because it goes, and fill within the image of the mountain’s geology and historical past. By extension, we’ll be taught one thing about Martian historical past.

Curiosity may also give us a way more detailed view of the clay-bearing unit than orbiter’s gave us. Orbital readings could not say for certain if the clay it sensed was within the bedrock of the mountain, or if it was from eroded pebbles and rocks that had eroded out of the higher layers of the mountain and tumbled all the way down to the ground of the crater.

Curiosity has clarified that to some extent, with the invention of clay in Aberlady and Kilmarlie, however there’s nonetheless a lot of work to do.

“Every layer of this mountain is a puzzle piece,” stated Curiosity Undertaking Scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL. “They every maintain clues to a unique period in Martian historical past.”

Curiosity is doing a effective job of piecing all of it collectively.

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