Curiosity Rover Archives

May 13, 2024May 14, 2024 by Mark Thompson

These Rocks Formed in an Ancient Lake on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity rover continues to search for signs that Mars’ Gale Crater conditions could support microbial life. Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

We already know that water has existed on the surface of Mars but for how long? Curiosity has been searching for evidence for the long term presence of water on Mars and now, a team of researchers think they have found it. The rover has been exploring the Gale Crater and found it contains high concentrations of Manganese. The mineral doesn’t form easily on Mars so the team think it may have formed as deposits in an ancient lake. It is interesting too that life on Earth helps the formation of Manganese so its presence on Mars is a mystery.

March 29, 2024March 30, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Search for Life on Mars Could Level-Up with MARSE Mission Concept

A breakdown of the Mars Astrobiology, Resource, and Science Explorers (MARSE) mission profile and its Simplified High Impact Energy Landing Device (SHIELD) system, which could revolutionize how we search for life on Mars by using four rovers at four different landing sites. (Credit: Longo (2024))

A recent study presented at the 55^th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) discusses the Mars Astrobiology, Resource, and Science Explorers (MARSE) mission concept and its Simplified High Impact Energy Landing Device (SHIELD), which offers a broader and cheaper method regarding the search for—past or present—life on the Red Planet, specifically by using four rovers at four different landing sites across Mars’ surface instead of just one-for-one. This concept comes as NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers continue to tirelessly explore the surface of Mars at Gale Crater and Jezero Crater, respectively.

August 28, 2023August 28, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Ancient Cracked Mud Found on Mars

A panorama image taken by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows a rock target nicknamed “Pontours” where researchers identified preserved, ancient mud cracks hypothesized to have shaped throughout lengthy cycles of wet and dry environments over many years. These cycles are hypothesized to support conditions where life could form. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/IRAP)

A recent study published in Nature examines how mud cracks observed on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover could provide insight into how life on the Red Planet could have formed in its ancient past. On Earth, mud cracks have traditionally been linked to cycles of wet and dry environments that assisted in developing the complex processes responsible for microbial life to take hold. This study was conducted by an international team of researchers and holds the potential to help scientists better understand the geological and chemical processes that might have existed in Mars’ ancient past, up to billions of years ago.

April 4, 2023April 5, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Perseverance Sees Drifting Clouds on Mars

Animation showing a series of pre-sunrise images of drifting clouds in the Martian sky taken by NASA's Perseverance rover on March 18, 2023. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA’s Perseverance rover mission provided a bluish pre-sunrise gift above Jezero Crater on March 18, 2022, aka Sol 738, or the 738^th Martian day of the mission, with “sol” being the official timekeeping method for Mars missions since one Martian day is approximately 40 minutes longer than one Earth day. And, on this particular sol, the car-sized explorer used one of its navigation cameras (Navcam) to snap images of high-altitude clouds drifting in the Martian sky, which it shared on its officially Twitter page on March 23, 2023.

March 8, 2023March 8, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Curiosity Sees Spectacular Crepuscular Rays in Martian Clouds

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these “sun rays” shining through clouds at sunset on Feb. 2, 2023, the 3,730th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. It was the first time that sun rays, also known as crepuscular rays, have been viewed so clearly on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Rover usually looks down at the ground, studying nearby rocks and craters. But sometimes, it looks up and sees something wonderful.

A new image released by Curiosity shows beautiful sun rays, called crepuscular rays, streaming through a bank of clouds on Mars at sunset. While relatively common here on Earth, they have never been seen on Mars. Crepuscular comes from crepusculum, the Latin word for twilight.

Another image from the rover shows a feather-shaped iridescent cloud in the high atmosphere on Mars.

February 27, 2023February 27, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Our Best Instruments Couldn’t Find Life on Mars

Jezero Crater (Left; Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) and Red Stone Jurassic fossil delta of the Atacama Desert in northwestern Chile (Right; Credit: Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos)

The planet Mars is arguably the most extensively studied planetary body in the entire Solar System, which began with telescopic observations by Galileo Galilei in 1609, with such telescopic observations later being taken to the extreme by Percival Lowell in the late 19^th century when he reported seeing what he believed were artificial canals made by an advanced intelligent race of Martians. But it wasn’t until the first close up image of Mars taken by NASA’s Mariner 4 in 1965 that we saw the Red Planet for what it really was: a cold and dead world with no water and no signs of life, whatsoever.

February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Matt Williams

Dust Storms on Mars Generate Static Electricity. What Does This Do to Its Surface?

Artist's impression of the electricity generated by a Martian dust storm. Credit: NASA

Dust storms are a serious hazard on Mars. While smaller storms and dust devils happen regularly, larger ones happen every year (during summer in the southern hemisphere) and can cover continent-sized areas for weeks. Once every three Martian years (about five and a half Earth years), the storms can become large enough to encompass the entire planet and last up to two months. These storms play a major role in the dynamic processes that shape the surface of Mars and are sometimes visible from Earth (like the 2018 storm that ended the Opportunity rover’s mission).

When Martian storms become particularly strong, the friction between dust grains causes them to become electrified, transferring positive and negative charges through static electricity. According to research led by planetary scientist Alian Wang at Washington University in St. Louis, this electrical force could be the major driving force of the Martian chlorine cycle. Based on their analysis, Wang and her colleagues believe this process could account for the abundant perchlorates and other chemicals that robotic missions have detected in Martian soil.

February 11, 2023February 11, 2023 by Scott Alan Johnston

Curiosity Just Found its Strongest Evidence of Ancient Water and Waves on Mars

This week, NASA’s Curiosity rover stumbled across the best evidence yet that liquid water once covered much of Mars in the planet’s distant past: undulating rippled rock formations – now frozen in time – that were sculpted by the waves of an ancient shallow lake. But perhaps the biggest surprise is that they were discovered in an area that researchers expected to be dry.

January 4, 2023January 4, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Mars Has Bizarre Dunes Thanks to its Low Atmospheric Pressure and Strange Winds

Image of sand ripples in the Bagnold dune field on lower Mount Sharp taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover in March 2017. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

In a recent study published in Nature Communications, an international team of researchers led by Stanford University used artificial intelligence (AI) to examine the formation of sand ripples and sand dunes of two distinct sizes on Mars. These formations might help scientists better understand Mars’ atmospheric history through examining the fossilized forms of these aeolian (windblown) structures using statistical analyses.

October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Curiosity Arrives in a Salty Region of Mars. Was it Left Over From a Dying Sea?

A Mastcam image from the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover on Sol 3609 of its mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill.

The Curiosity rover has now reached its primary target on Mount Sharp on Mars, the mountain in the middle of Gale Crater the rover has been climbing since 2014. This target is not the summit, but a region over 600 meters (2,000 feet) up the mountain that planetary geologists have long anticipated reaching.

Known as the “sulfate-bearing unit,” the region is a boundary between the rocks that saw a lot of water in their history and those that didn’t; a possible shoreline, if you will. That boundary is already providing insights into Mars’ transition from a wet planet to dry, filling in a key gap in the understanding of the planet’s history.