NASA's Curiosity rover has found evidence of water on ancient Mars with "rippled textures" and "landslide debris" in the foothills of Mount Sharp.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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TechTranscript
00:00 [ Music ]
00:05 The Curiosity rover has discovered lots of evidence
00:08 of ancient lakes on Mars, but what we saw
00:11 in this panorama surprised us.
00:12 Curiosity is currently exploring Mount Sharp.
00:17 You can see the upper part of the mountain here.
00:19 The whole mountain is three miles tall,
00:22 but we're down in the foothills.
00:24 In 2022, the rover started exploring a unique feature
00:28 on Mars called the marker band.
00:30 It's a dark, thin layer of rock that stands
00:35 out from the layers above and below it.
00:37 We first saw it in orbiter images years before we launched.
00:41 What created this winding layer of hard rock is a mystery,
00:45 but Curiosity can help us understand what formed the
00:49 marker band.
00:49 We first discovered that the rocks
00:54 within the marker band are really hard.
00:57 Curiosity has faced some challenges drilling into them.
00:59 Here's two of our attempts,
01:01 but we might find a softer spot on the road ahead.
01:05 Nearby, we found an exciting scientific clue.
01:10 These rippled textures were created billions of years ago
01:15 by waves in a shallow lake.
01:17 We've climbed through many lake deposits during our mission,
01:22 but have never seen wave ripples this clearly.
01:26 [ Music ]
01:30 This was especially surprising, since the area we're
01:33 in probably formed at a time when Mars was becoming more dry.
01:37 [ Music ]
01:42 Just above the rippled layer is another intriguing clue.
01:45 These rocks have a very repetitive pattern
01:49 in their spacing and thickness.
01:50 We see lots of layers on Mars, but they're rarely this regular.
01:56 We're not sure what caused this rhythmic pattern.
01:57 Weather or climate cycles, like dust storms happening
02:01 at periodic intervals, are possible explanations.
02:05 [ Music ]
02:16 Look at these gorgeous layered hills and cliffs
02:19 that Curiosity is headed toward.
02:20 If this was on Earth, we'd probably make it a
02:23 national park.
02:24 [ Music ]
02:28 In the distance here, we can see debris
02:30 in a valley called Geddes Vallis.
02:32 This was washed down here by wet landslides very late
02:36 in Mount Sharp's history.
02:37 This landslide debris is probably the most recent
02:41 evidence of water that we'll ever see.
02:43 It will allow us to study layers higher up on Mount Sharp
02:47 that we can't reach, since they're so far up the mountain.
02:50 [ Music ]
02:53 Curiosity has driven through some amazing scenery,
02:56 and we've learned so much about Mars' ancient climate.
02:59 But even after 10 years, there's so much more to explore.
03:03 [ Music ]
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