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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