Rocks with unusual shapes are common on Mars, and often were formed by water seeping through cracks in a rock in the ancient past, bringing harder minerals along with them. The rock is about an inch across (2.5 centimeters). NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this close-up view of a rock nicknamed “Terra Firme” that looks like the open pages of a book, on April 15, 2023, the 3,800th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the end of its robotic arm. On its 3,800th sol, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover photographed a book-like rock, “Terra Firme,” a result of water depositing harder minerals and wind erosion shaping it over time. "We’re thinking about rivers on a different scale than we have before," she added.NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took this close-up view of a rock nicknamed “Terra Firme” that looks like the open pages of a book, on April 15, 2023, the 3,800th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, using the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the end of its robotic arm. "What’s exciting here is we’ve entered a new phase of Jezero’s history," said Perseverance’s deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan in the statement. The scientists are now hoping to continue studying Perseverance's images, and to scan the ground with the rover's radar instrument. "But at the same time, the most common way to create these kinds of landforms would be a river." Some of these layers of different deposits spotted by Perseverance are also "anomalously tall for rivers on Earth," according to Ives, stretching up to 66 feet. It could be either a snakelike river like the Mississippi or a river that forms multiple channels that are separated by banks of sand. For one, we still don't know what such a river could have once looked like. Needless to say, scientists are still left with plenty of questions. "The more powerful the flow of water, the more easily it’s able to move larger pieces of material." Anomalously Tall "Those indicate a high-energy river that’s truckin’ and carrying a lot of debris," said Libby Ives, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in the statement. Massive panoramas stitched together from hundreds of images taken by Perseverance revealed new details, including grains and cobbles, that helped the scientists bolster their conclusion. That means some of the shallow streams scientists believe to have cut through the Martian surface billions of years ago may have been raging rivers instead. While traversing the edge of the Jezero Crater, a suspected dried-up lake bed that Perseverance has been exploring for more than two years now, the rover discovered a "fan-shaped pile of sedimentary rock that stands 820 feet tall and features curving layers suggestive of flowing water," according to a NASA statement. And most excitingly, it could even aid us in our efforts to probe the planet for signs of ancient life. The exciting new discovery could lead scientists to rethink what we know about the Red Planet's ancient environment. This new evidence, however, suggests that some of these waterways were far more ferocious than previously thought. NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has found what scientists suggest could be evidence of a raging, fast-moving river that flowed on the Martian surface billions of years ago.īefore the loss of most of its atmosphere, early Mars is believed to have been a watery world, featuring lakes and oceans.
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