Mars Curiosity rover finds, Where there should have been no signs of water

Water is the key to determining whether Mars has ever been inhabited. Liquid water is necessary for life as we know it to flourish, and although Mars' surface is presently dry, there was once liquid water there. However, the history of water on Mars is complicated, and researchers are still disputing when the planet's water supply dried up and for how long. It will soon get even more complicated. A fascinating finding recently uncovered by the Curiosity rover suggests that water once existed in a region that scientists had assumed to be dry. Photo Credit: NASA The picture above was taken by Curiosity in the Marker Band Valley in December 2022. The ripple-like patterns were produced by real ripples in a lake, which mixed up material on the lake bed into these formations, billions of years ago. The location of this discovery is noteworthy because the rover is now ascending Mount Sharp, a peak where the oldest rock layers are at the bottom and the youngest ones are at the summit. The researchers expected to find drier conditions where the rover is now, around half a mile from the mountain's base, but instead they discovered this proof that there was once a shallow lake in this area. According to Curiosity's project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ashwin Vasavada, "this is the best evidence of water and waves that we've seen in the entire mission." We hiked through thousands of feet of lake deposits and never saw evidence like this; now we have discovered it in a location where we had anticipated finding dry ground. Along with these ripples, the crew is also intrigued by another rock formation nearby. The repeating pattern of some rhythmic rock strata suggests that they were formed by periodic cycles of the climate or weather, such as dust storms. Photo Credit: Eos.org This suggests that the region's water history may have been more intricate than previously thought.It is clear from the wave ripples, debris flows, and rhythmic layers that wet-to-dry on Mars wasn't an easy process, according to Vasavada. "Mars' past climate, like Earth's, had a magnificent intricacy to it."