Curiosity had already confirmed that the surface of Mars had harbored water. But NASA claims to have discovered “the best evidence of water and waves that we have seen in the entire mission” of the robot on the Red Planet: “wrinkles” whose origin is directly related to the former presence of a “shallow lake”, in an informed statement and a video Point.
“We’ve passed ancient lakes many times, but we’ve never seen evidence like this,” said Ashwin Vasavada, one of the NASA scientists contributing to the Curiosity project.
Especially since the teams that analyzed the photos taken by Curiosity did not expect to find traces left by the water in this place. The formation of these rocks, which are found at the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain of almost 5 km, corresponds to a period in which Mars “was drying up”, according to scientists. Curiosity couldn’t dig into the ground to try to learn more because the surface was too hard.
The “most recent” traces of water also identified
The rover also identified even more recent traces of water near these “ripples”: debris in a valley called “Gedis Vallis,” which was swept away by a landslide “very late in Mount Sharp’s history.” “These landslide tracks are probably the most recent evidence of the presence of water [sur Mars] We’ll see about that,” says Ashwin Vasavada.
The Mount Sharp area is of particular interest to scientists. They affirm that by studying the different levels of sedimentation of the mountain (the lowest being the oldest, the highest the most recent), they will be able to learn more about the evolution of Mars, “of a planet that looked more like Earth”. in its millennial past, with a warmer climate and abundant water.
The water on the surface of Mars is thought to have evaporated around 3.5 billion years ago according to NASA, but the lakes are believed to persist under ice sheets.
The Curiosity robot has been traveling the planet for just over 10 years and has traveled 29 kilometers, with a drop of 625 meters, while analyzing 41 types of soil and rock extracted. NASA says it should work for several more years.
Source: BFM TV
