Oh No! Rover Data Shows Stunning Climate Shift on Mars

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A venerable Red-Planet rover might be spotting signs of the Martian climate drying up in ancient times.

The long-running NASA Curiosity mission, which will reach its 10th Earth-year anniversary on the Red Planet this August, is making its way up the slopes of Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) to trace the changing climate of Mars over the eons. For about the past year of its roving, Curiosity has been noticing water-rich clay giving way to a transition zone filled with salty sulfate. Scientists currently believe those features mark where streams dried up and sand dunes formed, according to a NASA statement(opens in new tab).

What this means is that lake deposits that populated the lower slopes are not as common as Curiosity reaches higher on the mountain. "Instead, we see lots of evidence of drier climates, like dry dunes that occasionally had streams running around them," Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity's project scientist at JPL, said in the statement.

Besides more sulfate, geologic features are capturing the attention of scientists. They are seeing sediments likely deposited in stacks of "flaky layers," including one nicknamed "The Prow" by team members.

The region has a complex history, including a dry origin story as a sand dune-filled area and some zones that appear to have had sediments carried in by water, JPL stated.

"Making the story richer yet more complicated is the knowledge that there were multiple periods in which groundwater ebbed and flowed over time, leaving a jumble of puzzle pieces for Curiosity's scientists to assemble into an accurate timeline," officials added in the statement.

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