Latest news with #NASAMars
News18
25-06-2025
- Science
- News18
NASA's Curiosity Rover Sends Photos Of Rocks On Mars That Hint At Ancient Rivers
Last Updated: Images reveal 'boxwork' patterns suggesting Mars once had a flowing underground water system. NASA's Curiosity rover has sent back detailed close-up images of Martian rock formations that the space agency's scientists say offer some of the strongest evidence yet of ancient groundwater flow on the red planet. The images, taken from the slopes of a mountain inside Mars' Gale Crater, show a network of low ridges etched in a striking crisscross pattern. According to NASA, these ridges likely formed when mineral-rich groundwater moved through the bedrock, depositing material that eventually hardened into the structures now captured by Curiosity. 'The bedrock below these ridges likely formed when groundwater trickling through the rock left behind minerals… hardening and becoming cementlike," the agency said in a statement. 'The rover found dramatic evidence of that groundwater when it encountered crisscrossing low ridges, some just a few inches tall, arranged in what geologists call a boxwork pattern," NASA said in a blogpost on its site. Exploring an area previously only seen from orbit, the Curiosity rover has found dramatic new evidence of ancient groundwater. The rover is using its drill to snag samples of rock that will give geologists new clues to how this area formed. — NASA Mars (@NASAMars) June 23, 2025 NASA first released the video and the images in a blog post on its website on Monday. 'A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here. As we drive on, we'll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target," Ashwin Vasavada, a scientist of the Curiosity Project and a member of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, was quoted as saying in the space agency's blog post. Scientists believe Mars once had rivers, lakes and perhaps even an ocean, but the planet gradually dried up as it lost its atmosphere. NASA's Curiosity rover was built by a team in California at a place called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL. They work with NASA to explore Mars and learn more about the red planet as part of a big space program.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Nasa rover spots strange Martian rock that looks like ‘chocolate cake'
Nasa's Curiosity rover has spotted a strange rock formation on Mars that looks like a multilayered chocolate cake. The rover team faced a technical challenge to find a safe area on the Red Planet to deploy the space vehicle's APXS spectrometer and MAHLI camera instruments. They eventually managed to place the APXS equipment on top of a prominent rock to study its target Martian area, including layered rocks named 'Hale Telescope' after the famous astronomical landmark in San Diego, California. The rover imaged and conducted analyses of another target a little further from the Hale Telescope area called 'Fan Palm'. In all, the Curiosity rover completed a drive of some 23 meters in preparation for the study plan lasting three Martian days. Curiosity now has its instruments as well as the APXS spectrometer set on the 'cakey target', planetary scientist Scott Van Bommel from Washington University said in a Nasa blog post. 'Perhaps it was because of Easter last weekend, perhaps I needed an early lunch,' Dr VanBommel commented, 'whatever the cause, I could not shake the visual parallels between the rocks in our workspace as captured in this blog's image and a many-layered cake such as a Prinzregententorte.' The weathering patterns on the rock formation make it look like a 'layered cake that little fingers have picked the icing off,' researchers say. The spacecraft has undergone a new AI software upgrade, giving it greater autonomy to choose its next target, Nasa noted. An upgraded version of the Curiosity's AEGIS instrument would enable the rover to autonomously determine the target and analyse it with its chemical analysis equipment. The rover's encounter with the strange rock formation occurred just days after it was captured driving across the Red Planet for the first time from orbit. An image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed Curiosity as a dark speck at the front of a trail of rover tracks about 320m long. Making tracks: From its vantage point in space, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter again captured the @MarsCuriosity rover, this time in mid-drive. The combination of eyes in the sky and wheels on the ground has helped us reveal the planet in new ways. — NASA Mars (@NASAMars) April 24, 2025 Since its landing at the Martian Gale Crater in August 2012, Curiosity has uncovered many details about the Red Planet's ancient habitability, helping find if it ever had the conditions to support microbial life. Its mobile science lab analyses rocks, soil and the Martian atmosphere, looking for chemical signatures of life. It has made several landmark discoveries, including evidence of ancient riverbeds, organic molecules, and past habitable environments. The rover has also helped determine the current Martian climate and radiation levels which could help future astronauts prepare for exploration.
