White Veins of Mars: Curiosity Hits 'A Jackpot' in Quest for Wetter Past

Jan. 19, 2013— -- White veins of minerals coursing through rocks on the floor of Mars's Gale Crater are providing some of the strongest evidence yet that the rover Curiosity's landing site once was a wetter, warmer place.

The details are still fuzzy. But the composition of the minerals indicate that they precipitated out of water flowing through fissures in the rock, while large grains within the rocks themselves are rounded, suggesting that water might have dulled their sharp edges.

Yellowknife Bay, the rocky expanse Curiosity currently inhabits, "is literally shot through with these fractures," says John Grotzinger, a geologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena., Calif., and the mission's chief scientist.

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It also features abundant, berry-shaped spherules that scientists say are sedimentary concretions formed in and worked over by water.

All together, "basically these rocks were saturated with water," Dr. Grotzinger explained during a briefing Tuesday outlining the rover's latest exploits.

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Yellowknife Bay represents "a jackpot unit," he added. Initially, researchers thought they might have to drive Curiosity up on the shoulders of Mt. Sharp, a towering summit in the middle of the crater, to find such a trove.

If Curiosity made these finds on Mt. Sharp, "we would have been absolutely thrilled," Grotzinger says.

Curiosity, a one-ton geochemistry lab on wheels, landed on Mars in August. Its goal is to see if the crater at one time could have been hospitable for simple forms of organic life. Curiosity has spent the last six months exercising its suite of 10 instruments and its seven-foot robotic arm in a series of tests aimed at ensuring all the hardware is working well before the rover heads for Mt. Sharp, its ultimate destination.

The rover probably won't begin to explore Mt. Sharp for another year.

Curiosity has traveled slightly more than a quarter of a mile, as the crow flies, since landing. Along the way, however, scientists have chosen targets for instrument tests that have already provided insights into the crater's geologic past – including evidence for an ancient stream bed.

Yellowknife Bay, a portion of a larger feature the team dubbed Glenelg, is the lowest, hence youngest, formation the rover has explored. It hosts a number of clues that point to a watery past.