Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Curiosity is back in action following a recent software upgrade, conducting a mini-drill test to make sure that a rock target called Mojave2 is suitable for drilling at full-depth.
According to BBC News, the Mars rover is looking for a stable rock that can sustain drilling of surviving drilling to depths of 2.3 inches (6 centimeters) so that it can acquire an a sample which will be analyzed using its onboard laboratory equipment.
A similar test conducted earlier this month was unsuccessful, as Curiosity cut a hole that was approximately 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter in a similar target, Mojave. However, the test drilling cracked the rock and dislodged pieces of it, according to NASA.
Several hours following the conclusion of that test, the rover team began evaluating other potential drilling sites that might be appropriate for sample-collection. They settled on Mojave2, and thus far, all reports are that the second time will be the charm.
As long as no unexpected issues arise, reports indicate that the drilling task should be completed shortly. This would be the fifth drill sample collected by Curiosity during its time on Mars.
Looking for atmospheric evidence
Currently, the NASA rover is investigating the lower layers of Mount Sharp, a large mountain at the center of Gale Crater, where it landed in 2012. It has recently discovered evidence of how the mountain itself formed from river and lake sediments millions of years ago, the BBC said.
That hypothesis, based on an interpretation of data obtained by the rover that was released back in December, indicates that the Red Planet once had a climate capable of sustaining long-lasting lakes at several different locations of the surface, project scientists explained at the time.
“If our hypothesis for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that warm and wet conditions were transient, local, or only underground on Mars,” said Ashwin Vasavada, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “A more radical explanation is that Mars’ ancient, thicker atmosphere raised temperatures above freezing globally, but so far we don’t know how the atmosphere did that.”
Those findings would help explain why the three-mile tall Mount Sharp rests in a crater, with its lower flanks exposing hundreds of layers of rock that alternate between lake, river and wind deposits. Those layers are evidence of the repeated filling and evaporating of a Martian lake that was larger and longer-lasting than any previously detected
Through Curiosity’s analysis of the lowest sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp, NASA scientists believe that sand and silt was carried to the lake by rivers. Those sediments were then deposited at the mouth of the river, forming deltas similar to those present on Earth.
Once the crater filled to a height of around a few hundred yards, the sediments hardened into rock, and the process was repeated several times. Eventually, wind eroded the layers that had accumulated into the shape of the mountain, carving away the material that could once be found between the crater perimeter and what is now the edge of the mountain.
—–
Follow redOrbit on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest.
Comments