NASA Rover Finds Old Streambed on Martian Surface
09.28.2012
NASA's Curiosity rover mission has found evidence that a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is now driving. The finding is a different type of evidence for water on Mars than ever found before. Scientists are studying Curiosity's images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels. The sizes and shapes of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock are clues to the speed and distance of a long-ago stream's flow.
TRT: 00:39
Super: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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HQ Contact – Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
For more information: http://www.nasa.gov/msl
Rebecca Williams, Planetary Science Institute
Cut 1-
00:22 “When Curiosity came up to these rock out crops that are broken
and tilted so that we can see the size and shapes of rock fragments within a
rock out crop and we were a little surprised that they were rounded and fairly
large, some of them up to the size of a golf ball. Their size and shape tell us
that they had to be transported by water. They are too large to be transported
by wind.”
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Rebecca Williams, Planetary Science Institute
Cut 2-
00:17 “Geologists have put together several hypotheses’ based on orbital
images showing how mars has been sculpted by water but this is the first time
that we’ve seen a rock fragment. We have ground truth that a rock has been
moved by water.”
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