guardian.co.uk,
Reuters in Cape Canaveral, Friday 28 September 2012
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| The outcrop characteristics are consistent with a sedimentary conglomerate, or a rock that was formed by the deposition of water. Photograph: Nasa/Reuters |
Nasa's Mars
rover, Curiosity, dispatched to learn if the most Earth-like planet in the solar
system was suitable for microbial life, has found clear evidence its landing
site was once awash in water, a key ingredient for life, scientists said.
Curiosity,
a roving chemistry laboratory the size of a small car, touched down on 6 August
inside a giant impact basin near the planet's equator. The primary target for
the two-year mission is a three-mile-high mound of layered rock rising from the
floor of Gale Crater.
Scientists
suspect the mound, known as Mount Sharp, is the remains of sediment that once
completely filled the crater. Analysis of a slab of rock located between the
crater's north rim and the base of Mount Sharp indicate a fast-moving stream of
water once flowed there.
Images
taken by Curiosity and released on Thursday show rounded stones cemented into
the rock, which rises like a piece of jack-hammered sidewalk from the planet's
surface.
The stones
inside the rock are too big to have been moved by wind, Curiosity scientist
Rebecca Williams, with the planetary science institute in Tucson, Arizona, told
reporters on a conference call.
"The
consensus of the science team is that these are water-transported gravel in a
vigorous stream," she said.
The rock is
believed to be from the floor of an ancient stream which was once between
ankle- and knee-deep.
The
analysis is based on telephoto images taken by the rover, which is en route to
a patch of land named Glenelg where three different types of rock intersect.
Scientists
have not yet decided if the slab of rock warrants a chemical analysis, or if
there are better targets for Curiosity to look for the building blocks of life
and the minerals to preserve it.
"The
question about habitability goes beyond the simple observation of water on
Mars," said lead scientist John Grotzinger at the California Institute of
Technology.
"Certainly
flowing water is a place where micro-organisms could have lived. This
particular kind of rock may or may not be a good place to preserve those
components that we associate with a habitable environment," he said.
The $2.5bn
Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity mission is Nasa's first astrobiology mission
since the 1970s-era Viking probes.
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