Space 2069 by David Whitehouse

Space 2069 by David Whitehouse

Author:David Whitehouse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
Published: 2020-08-15T00:00:00+00:00


CLIMBING MOUNT SHARP

Intrigued by the geological signs seen from orbit, NASA landed its next rover, called Curiosity, in Gale crater in August 2012. Curiosity is the most sophisticated rover yet sent to the red planet, with a range of instruments to look at its weather and geology. At the time of writing it has survived over 2,786 sols, and travelled over 20 kilometres. You can see the wear and tear on its metal wheels which mark out a unique repeating pattern in the Martian soil – Morse Code for JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California where it was made.

Curiosity is climbing a mountain believed by geologists to be an enormous mound of sedimentary rock layers deposited over 2 billion years. At 5.5 kilometres high this mountain is about the same height as the tallest mountain on the Moon – Mons Huygens, near where Apollo 15 landed. From rim to rim, Gale is 154 kilometres across and is an ancient – 3.5–3.8‑billion-year-old – impact crater. It’s thought it was filled with sediments, first by water and then by wind. Then wind erosion scoured out the sediments, leaving Mount Sharp isolated in its centre. It’s hoped that during Curiosity’s trek it will be able to study 2 billion years of Martian history in the sediments.

Additionally, the rover’s landing site was an alluvial fan, created by water. It was a region unlike anything seen by previous Mars landers, looking like a dry lakebed. Indeed, the crater’s floor is covered with deltas and fans carved by ancient water. That is where Curiosity first drilled, making two small holes in the Martian soil. When the sample was analysed it was found that the rock contained clay minerals, a clear sign of water.

In September 2014, Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp, its main destination. Watching from above in 2015, scientists spotted what they call recurrent slope lineae, downslope flows of briny water, on Mount Sharp near Curiosity. The rover is now halfway through a region called the ‘clay-bearing unit’. In the six years since it started to ascend Mount Sharp, it has been going higher and higher into the sediments, finding ever-muddier layers. Geologists want to know how high these mudstone layers go. When Curiosity gets through the clay layer it’s thought it will reach a sulphur-bearing layer. It might not get to the top of Mount Sharp because in a few more years its ever-declining nuclear power system will degrade enough to limit operations. Eventually Curiosity will get stuck, almost certainly never again to be touched by human hands.

After a flawless launch and a quiet half-year cruise to Mars, the InSight spacecraft landed safely in Elysium Planitia on 26 November 2018, carrying a seismometer to detect Marsquakes as well as probes to investigate the deep interior of the planet. It was another mission that reused parts of previous craft, in this case those that had been used on the Phoenix lander. InSight found that Mars is alive with quakes, trembling more often than expected.



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