Since 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been crisscrossing the Martian surface, gathering data about the planet’s history, including evidence of ancient water on Mars.
Curiosity has provided incredible new insights about Mars’ ancient past, with the most recent discovery coming from ripples that scientists say could be evidence of ancient water on Mars.
The most recent findings reveal that areas of the Red Planet that scientists had previously believed drier were actually home to ancient water on Mars. The new evidence comes in the form of ripples in rocks that scientists believe were once found across the planet’s surface.
This recent evidence of ancient water, combined with other research projects, has even led researchers to consider the possibility of past microbial life on Mars. With the Curiosity rover continuing its mission, the next few years promise to be incredibly revealing as to the history of Mars and its potential for life.
The past several years have seen incredible improvements in our understanding of ancient water on Mars and the planet’s environment, with Curiosity and NASA’s Perseverance at the center of many of them. And, with NASA planning a manned mission to Mars, humanity could learn even more about our planet’s neighboring worlds.
As the rover continues its mission, future discoveries are likely, especially when NASA begins its Mars sample return mission and gets to look deeper at the various rocks and samples that Perseverance has taken. Of course, there are concerns that could bring ancient bacteria to Earth, but that’s something NASA plans to tackle when the samples reach Earth.
As the Curiosity rover uncovers more clues about ancient water on Mars, NASA will be closer to answering the eternal question of whether or not life still exists on the Red Planet. And, of course, whether water was the cause of these strange phenomena that we continue to uncover.
