Streambed Discovered on Mars
Remnants of Ancient Streambed Discovered on Mars
“NASA’s Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence – images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels – is the first of its kind. Scientists are studying the images of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock. The sizes and shapes of stones offer clues to the speed and distance of a long-ago stream’s flow.”
Have we heard anything more about Oppy’s latest discovery?
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/new…
Actually an alluvial fan.No one big flood.Great stuff.When they get to Mt. Sharp they will be at the end of a dry stream bed.I hope they drive up it.The way they are going they will pass over a collapsed lava tube.I counted 5 distinct craters in a line.The rest have been filled in.Kind of large for a lava tube,may be something else.Very different terrain from the other rover sites.
“The abundance of channels in the fan between the rim and conglomerate suggests flows continued or repeated over a long time, not just once or for a few years.”…
Can’t wait till they get to the base of that mountain.
They really know what they are doing when it comes to picking landing sites. Impressive.
At the risk of sounding like a total fanboy: This… is… so… COOL! Seriously. Mars is a lot more complex than the ‘desert world’ as which some try to portray it.
That picture from Opportunity is weird. Maybe bubbles in an ancient gas-rich lava flow or a field of geodes that have been exposed by aeons of dust storms eroding the matrix around them?
Nah, just wait, it’ll be just like the moon again. What, a streambed? that cannot be.
NASA has been where there has been flowing water before.I think it was the first rover.They said there were highs and lows in the land,which was caused by a very large water flow.Don’t remember any rounded pebbles though.Water carried boulders everywhere as I remember.
So what is the theory with this? Was mars cold and a volcano melted some ice and this stream ran for a day? or week? Or month? Or was Mars warm? and wet? My guess would be something like the former. But no clue. Cool to learn. Hope Mars is lifeless till we get there.
George
DTARS:Sorry you missed the show.They said by how much the pebbles were worn,they came from a long distance and the water was running,I think,for a thousand years.Had to be warm.They gave no theory of the source of the water.Yours is as good as any.
Still looking for those lunar streambeds, right? The moon is just like Mars, just closer. Ignore that streambed behind the Mars curtain…
Got past the 500 already … should make my quota sometime mid month. My inspiration, as always…