A River Ran Through It: Why Do They Think There Was Once Water on Mars?

Why is everyone so excited about these dusty Mars rocks?

This week’s big news was the announcement of evidence for flowing water on Mars, based on images of what appear to be smooth river rock-type pebbles found by Curiosity. Of course that’s a big statement to make, and for good reason — identifying water, whether present or past, is one step closer to determining whether Mars was ever a suitable place for life to develop. Yet here we are, not even two months into the mission and Curiosity is already sending us solid clues that Mars was once a much wetter place than it is now.

JPL released a video today providing a brief-but-informative overview of what Curiosity has discovered in Gale Crater and why it’s gotten everyone so excited.

Check it out so you’ll have something to talk about over the weekend:

MSL Long Term Planner Sanjeev Gupta reviews Curiosity’s latest discovery

Video: JPLNews. Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Jason Major

A graphic designer in Rhode Island, Jason writes about space exploration on his blog Lights In The Dark, Discovery News, and, of course, here on Universe Today. Ad astra!

Recent Posts

Two Stars in a Binary System are Very Different. It's Because There Used to be Three

A beautiful nebula in the southern hemisphere with a binary star at it's center seems…

4 hours ago

The Highest Observatory in the World Comes Online

The history of astronomy and observatories is full of stories about astronomers going higher and…

4 hours ago

Is the JWST Now an Interplanetary Meteorologist?

The JWST keeps one-upping itself. In the telescope's latest act of outdoing itself, it examined…

5 hours ago

Solar Orbiter Takes a Mind-Boggling Video of the Sun

You've seen the Sun, but you've never seen the Sun like this. This single frame…

6 hours ago

What Can AI Learn About the Universe?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become ubiquitous, with applications ranging from data analysis, cybersecurity,…

6 hours ago

Enceladus’s Fault Lines are Responsible for its Plumes

The Search for Life in our Solar System leads seekers to strange places. From our…

1 day ago