Mars had drier and wetter eras before drying up completely 3 billion years ago: Study

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, which continues to explore the base of Mount Sharp on the Red Planet, recently helped find that Mars had drier and wetter eras before drying up completely about three billion years ago. According to a study, Roger Wiens, a coauthor on the paper and scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said that a “primary goal” of the Curiosity mission was to study the transition between the habitable environment of the past, to the dry and cold climate that Mars has now. Wiens added that these rock layers recorded that change in “great” detail. 

It is worth noting that ChemCam is a rock-vapourising laser that sits on the mast of the Curiosity rover and analyses the chemical composition of Martian rocks. According to the study, with the help of a long-range camera on ChemCam, a team including Wiens and other researchers discovered that the Martian climate alternated between dry and wetter periods before it went completely dry. The ChemCam successfully made detailed observations of the sedimentary beds from the planet’s surface and revealed that the conditions under which they formed. 

Types of beds on Mars change ‘drastically’ 

The researchers noted that the Curiosity observed that the types of bed change drastically. They said that sandstone layers on Mars showed structures that indicated their formation from wind-formed dunes. It also suggested long, dry climate episodes. However, thin alternating brittle and resistant beds, which are typical of river-floodplain deposits, also marked wetter conditions. 

The study said that these changes in terrain showed that the climate of Mars underwent several large-scale fluctuations between wetter and dryer periods until the generally arid conditions observed today took hold. Now, during an extended mission, NASA’s Curiosity rover is scheduled to climb the foothills of Mount Sharp and drill into its various beds for a closer look at the fascinating materials. 

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the Curiosity rover team named a hill on Mars in honour of a Mexican mission scientist who died due to COVID-19. The hill along the path of Perseverance was named “Rafael Navarro mountain” and is located on Mount Sharp in northwest Gale Crater. The team had earlier also named other features on the Red Planet after the notable deceased scientists, including Jake Matijevic and John Klein.  

(Image: WikiImages/Pixabay)