NASA Curiosity rover marks 2 yrs on Mars
9 Aug 2014 4:47 AM IST
The unmanned spacecraft landed inside the Gale Crater on August 5, 2012 to start a multi-year mission to seek out areas where life could or may once have existed. During its first year of operations, Curiosity fulfilled its major science goal of determining whether Mars ever offered environmental conditions favourable for microbial life, NASA said.
Clay-bearing sedimentary rocks on the crater floor in an area called Yellowknife Bay yielded evidence of a lake-bed environment billions of years ago that offered fresh water, all of the key elemental ingredients for life, and a chemical source of energy for microbes, if any existed there.
‘Before landing, we expected that we would need to drive much farther before answering that habitability question,’ said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
‘We were able to take advantage of landing very close to an ancient stream-bed and lake. Now we want to learn more about how environmental conditions on Mars evolved, and we know where to go to do that,’ said Grotzinger.
Clay-bearing sedimentary rocks on the crater floor in an area called Yellowknife Bay yielded evidence of a lake-bed environment billions of years ago that offered fresh water, all of the key elemental ingredients for life, and a chemical source of energy for microbes, if any existed there.
‘Before landing, we expected that we would need to drive much farther before answering that habitability question,’ said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
‘We were able to take advantage of landing very close to an ancient stream-bed and lake. Now we want to learn more about how environmental conditions on Mars evolved, and we know where to go to do that,’ said Grotzinger.
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