Mars: Analyzing Layers of History

Gale Crater Landing Site - Mars

On August 5, 2012, NASA hopes to land the most robust rover ever, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), nicknamed Curiosity, inside the ellipse drawn on the graphic to the left (click to enlarge).

 The graphic detail is of Gale Crater, on the planet Mars.

The mountain inside the crater was not likely formed by the meteorite impact billions of years ago, rather it was more likely formed later by layered deposits over eons of time, most likely when water covered both the crater as well as the area around the crater.

Gale Crater - Overhead View

The graphic photo to the right (click to enlarge) is another view of the crater, also containing the ellipse shaped landing zone (at about 11 o'clock just inside the crater rim).

That landing zone has been shrunk to a much smaller target area recently, because the landing software has been improved, tested, and uploaded to Curiosity.

This photo clearly shows that the mountain area that will be studied is not in the center of the crater.

After the MSL Curiosity lands safely, is checked out, then begins its journey, it will eventually try to follow canyons uphill toward the top of the mountain.

Along the way up the mountain, it will sample layers of deposited material, analyzing them for both their mineral content, as well as indications of how those minerals were deposited.

The scientists conducting the analysis will be able to determine if the material was laid down in water, the salinity and acidity of that water at the time, as well as general environmental conditions that changed the layers over vast amounts of time.

Furthermore, the clay materials near the lowest elevations will be analyzed for organic materials as well as signatures of microbial or other life forms:

"This may be one of the thickest exposed sections of layered sedimentary rocks in the solar system. The rock record preserved in those layers holds stories that are billions of years old -- stories about whether, when, and for how long Mars might have been habitable."

(Strange Attraction ... Gale Crater). One of the main interests Dredd Blog has is the source of the microbial fossils found in meteorites that originated on Mars but later crashed into the Earth.

Some of them have been analyzed by NASA scientists who have concluded that the fossils inside those meteorites are organic, microbial life, which came from Mars.

That is a controversial issue at this time, however, there is a chance that the Curiosity rover will be able to add to the data upon which the controversy is based.

Another controversial issue is the Exploded Planet Hypothesis which says that a planet located between Mars and Jupiter exploded.

It generated meteors which led to cratering on other planets and moons when those meteors became meteorites.

When that planet exploded it left asteroids and comets as residue and debris.

Anyway, the analysis of strata layers on Mars, when compared to eventual analysis of strata layers on Phobos and on the asteroid Vesta, may provide some sort of syncronization that could help to solve these controversial issues.