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Rover probes role water may have played on Mars
Source: Agencies |
September 2, 2011, Friday
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NASA'S Mars rover Opportunity is uncovering new details about the role water may have played on what is now a cold, dry planet, scientists said yesterday.
Opportunity is one of two small rovers that landed on opposite sides of Mars in January 2004 for what were expected to be 90-day studies to look for signs of the past presence of water on the planet. Water is believed to be a key ingredient for life.
Sister probe Spirit succumbed to the harsh Martian environment last year, leaving Opportunity to go solo until the US space agency's next rover, Curiosity, arrives in August 2012.
Opportunity originally touched down near the equator in an area called Meridiani Planum and almost immediately discovered evidence the plain was once covered by shallow, salty and highly acidic water. It later spent two years studying exposed bedrock and other features in a small crater named Victoria.
At a new destination, a 14-mile- (22-km) wide crater named Endeavour, Opportunity has discovered a different type of terrain with a chemical makeup unlike anything previously encountered.
"We may soon be able to study clay minerals and rock types that formed in low-acid, wet conditions, which may tell us more about a potentially habitable environment," Dave Lavery, who oversees the Mars Exploration Rovers program at NASA headquarters in Washington, told reporters during a conference call.
Opportunity is one of two small rovers that landed on opposite sides of Mars in January 2004 for what were expected to be 90-day studies to look for signs of the past presence of water on the planet. Water is believed to be a key ingredient for life.
Sister probe Spirit succumbed to the harsh Martian environment last year, leaving Opportunity to go solo until the US space agency's next rover, Curiosity, arrives in August 2012.
Opportunity originally touched down near the equator in an area called Meridiani Planum and almost immediately discovered evidence the plain was once covered by shallow, salty and highly acidic water. It later spent two years studying exposed bedrock and other features in a small crater named Victoria.
At a new destination, a 14-mile- (22-km) wide crater named Endeavour, Opportunity has discovered a different type of terrain with a chemical makeup unlike anything previously encountered.
"We may soon be able to study clay minerals and rock types that formed in low-acid, wet conditions, which may tell us more about a potentially habitable environment," Dave Lavery, who oversees the Mars Exploration Rovers program at NASA headquarters in Washington, told reporters during a conference call.
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