Curiosity rover is climbing through dramatic striped terrain on Mars

Nearly each day we right here on Earth get a panoramic image of Mars’s terrain despatched again by a rover. However, the view from space may be fairly superb, too. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) simply despatched again a thought-provoking image of Curiosity because it makes its manner up a steep ridge on Mount Sharp.

The rover is a tiny black dot within the heart of the picture, which provides a superb feeling for what MRO’s HiRISE digicam achieved. For scale, the rover is in regards to the dimension of a dinner desk, sitting in a area of alternating darkish and light-weight bands of fabric on the pink planet.

The place’s Curiosity?

The Curiosity rover is exploring an historical ridge on the aspect of Mount Sharp, which is the height of a crater on Mars. It is sitting on the aspect of a characteristic referred to as Gediz Vallis Ridge, and the terrains and supplies protect a document of what issues had been like when water final flowed there. That occurred about three billion years in the past. The power of the move introduced important quantities of rocks and particles via the area. They piled as much as type the ridge. So, a lot of what you see right here is the desiccated stays of that flooding.

Particles flows are fairly widespread right here on Earth, significantly within the aftermath of floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and different actions. We are able to see them wherever materials floods via a area or down a slope. In a flood-based move, the velocity of the water combines with gravity and the diploma of slope to ship materials speeding throughout the floor. A particles move may also be a dry landslide, and people can happen just about wherever on Earth the place the situations are proper.

One other kind of particles move comes from volcanic exercise. That happens when materials erupts from a volcano, or when earthquakes mixed with an eruption collapse materials into the aspect of the mountain. That leads to what’s referred to as a “lahar.” People in North America would possibly recall the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980; it resulted in a number of lahars that buried components of the encircling terrain.

Now that scientists see similar-seeming areas on Mars, they wish to know a number of issues. How did they type? Had been they created by the identical processes that make them on Earth? And, how way back did they start to type? Curiosity and Perseverance and different rovers and landers have been despatched to Mars to assist reply these questions.

Understanding the particles ridge

Did any of those actions occur on Mars? The proof is fairly robust, which is why Gediz Vallis itself is a serious exploration purpose for the rover. It is a canyon that stretches throughout 9 kilometers of the Martian floor and is carved about 140 meters deep. Gediz was probably carved by so-called “fluvial” exercise (that means flowing motion) to start with.

Later floods deposited a wide range of fine-grained sands and rocks. Over time, winds have blown plenty of that materials away, forsaking protected pockets of supplies left behind by the flooding. The dimensions of the rocks tells one thing in regards to the velocity of the flows that deposited all the fabric. Geological research of these rocks will reveal their mineral compositions, together with their publicity to water over time.

The Gediz Vallis ridge resulted from the motion of water pushing rocks and dust round to construct it up over time. Planetary scientists now want to determine the sequence of occasions that created it. The clues lie within the scattered rocks within the area and the encircling terrain. Mount Sharp itself (formally generally known as Aeolis Mons), is about 5 kilometers excessive and is, basically, a stack of layered sedimentary rocks. As Curiosity makes its manner up the mountain, it explores youthful and youthful supplies.

Curiosity’s mission at Gediz

To place all this on a bigger scale, Mount Sharp is the central peak of Gale Crater. It shaped some 3.5 to three.8 billion years in the past from an impression. As time glided by, water flooded the crater a number of occasions. It flowed out and finally disappeared as Mars’s local weather modified it to the dusty desert we see right this moment.

Winds additionally performed a task in filling the crater with dust and sand deposits. This so-called aeolian exercise additionally helped carve out Mount Sharp. This historical past of wind- and water-based deposition and erosion made Gale Crater a really enticing place to discover. That is why Curiosity was despatched there and continues its journey up Mount Sharp.