Mars Curiosity Rover has found evidence of an ancient Oasis on the “Red Planet” Mars while trekking at the 150-kilometer-wide Gale Crater on Mars.
Scientists of the Curiosity Mission has published an article earlier this week in the “Nature Geoscience” describing the scene. The researchers analyzing data from the rover are extrapolating from the data that rocks enriched by mineral salts are evidence of briny ponds that went through periods of drying out and overflowing. Those deposits serve as a watermark made by climate fluctuations as Mars’ climate changed from a wet one to the current frigid ice desert it is today.
As per the statement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, the next step for the scientists is to understand how much time did the transition took and when did it happen.
The Gale Crater on Mars seems like the leftover of the geological formation from an impact that changed the surface of Mars. Eventually, water and wind filled the crater and the hardening sediment, carved by wind, created the Mount Sharp geological formation that the Curiosity Rover is scaling right now.
The Rover collected samples from the crater as it climbs up the crater and sends data after analysis for further analysis to reveal more information about Mars.
Curiosity Rover found salts across a 500-foot-tall section of sedimentary rocks called the “Sutton Island” when it first visited in 2017.
