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October 18, 2012

FOR KINDS: Curiosity’s watery find

Since August, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring a giant Martian crater with a mountain in the middle. In late September, scientists announced that if the rover had landed there 3.5 billion years ago, it might have landed with a splash. Curiosity seems to have landed right in the middle of a former streambed.

The moving water would have been “from ankle to hip deep, and maybe moving a few feet a second,” planetary scientist William Dietrich told Science News. Dietrich works with other scientists on the Curiosity mission.

Finding water on Mars is no surprise: Previous studies had turned up evidence that long ago the “Red Planet” may have had streams, rivers, oceans and plenty of rain. Images and other data collected from previous orbiting missions suggested that the giant crater probably contained water billions of years ago. Still, the scientists who work on Curiosity say they’re glad evidence for water came so early in the rover’s mission.

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