- NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity that soft-landed on the Gale Crater using a sky crane has now completed one Martian year (687 earth days), a significant achievement considering the harsh environmental conditions on Mars.
- Besides, it has also fulfilled its main goal of providing information on whether the past environmental conditions in Mars was favourable for the formation of life.
- One important parameter for this is the presence of liquid water and the information sent by Curiosity confirmed that at one point Mars had drinkable liquid water.
- Presence of well-rounded pebbles in the rock layers of a dry river bed added to this as stones become well-rounded only when transported over a long distance and above a particular speed by surface running water.
- Deposition of alternate layers aligned at a particular angle are indicative of a paleoriver. Even the presence of clay minerals inside a drilled rock suggested that water was present over extended periods of time.
- However, despite the presence of liquid water the lack of atmospheric methane greatly reduces the possibility of any extant or extinct microbial life on Mars.
- Detection of orthoclase in the Windjana sandstone sample, a mineral found abundantly on earth’s crust was a surprise.
- The question now arises over Curiosity’s ability to reconfirm on the ground the latest find of glacial, periglacial and fluvial (including glacio-fluvial) activity within the Gale Crater some 3,500 million years ago.
- NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Eropean Space Agency’s Mars Express had earlier found potential evidence of paleoglaciers.
- It is hoped that India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, to be inserted into the Martian orbit on September 24 this year, will unearth more facets and enhance the limited understanding that we have about the Red Planet.
- Read at: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/an-eventful-year-on-mars/article6161276.ece
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