Curiosity has found a course of a dried up stream on Mars

Hope of mankind on the discovery of traces of life on Mars is increasingly stronger! As reported on the NASA website, the Curiosity rover discovered the remains of an ancient Martian brook that once flowed in an area that is being explored by rover.

Scientists have found in the pictures from the rover pieces of conglomerate formed by cemented layers of gravel formed at the bottom of an ancient stream. This is the first occurrence of this type of sediment. Having studied the shape and size of the formations, the scientists were able to draw conclusions about the speed and depth of the Martian creek.



“Water flowed at about 3 feet per second (0.9 meters per second), and the depth was approximately between the ankle and the thigh,” said one of the leaders of the Curiosity mission, William Dietrich. “A lot of research has been written about the Martian canals, and many hypotheses have been put forward about the flows in them. But this is the first time that we actually see gravel on water on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the dimension of the channel material to direct observation of the phenomenon, ”he added.
')


Rover Curiosity landed on the surface of Mars on August 6 in the Gale crater in the southern hemisphere of the planet. Stones of cemented gravel were found halfway between the northern shaft of the Gale crater and the base of Mount Sharp in its center. Satellite images of this region showed that in this region there was a rock carrying cone brought by streams of water flowing through a valley washed in the crater shaft.

Cemented gravel was discovered in a study of two rock outcrops. The size of grains in them varied from the size of a grain of sand to a golf ball, some are angular in shape, but many are rounded. “The form says that they were brought, and the size that they could not be brought by the wind. They brought exactly the flow of water, “- said William Dietrich.