The Curiosity rover has taken pictures of unusual purple boulders on the slopes of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, whose chemical composition will help scientists understand how the water disappeared from the surface of Mars, NASA reports.
“Large variations in color suggest that the slopes of Mount Sharp are extremely diverse in their geology. Winds and sand blown by the wind usually clear the rocks in this part of the slopes of soil and other sediment, which usually hide these colorful cobblestones and rocks from our view, - NASA reports, whose words are reported by Space.com.
The Curiosity rover has been operating on the surface of Mars for the fourth year now, receiving unique data about its past and modern appearance. Curiosity is now located on the slopes of Mount Sharpe, about 800 meters from the site of its last parking in the place called "Murray Ridge".
The rocks of this region, scientists expect, will help us uncover the main mystery of the red planet - to understand how it turned from an analogue of the Earth to the dry and cold place that Mars is today. Scientists hope that studying lake sediments, the last traces of Mars' water, will help to understand how and where it disappeared.
One of the first such targets may be unusual purple boulders recently discovered by the rover during one of the stops on the way to the top of Mount Sharp. Such "multicolored" structures, according to scientists, speak of complex chemical processes that took place in the last warm epochs in the life of Mars.
Geologists speculate, based on past chemical analyzes of small inclusions of purple rocks elsewhere on Mars, which Curiosity has studied, that these boulders are composed of hematite, a rare volcanic rock on Earth that is rare for the red planet.
Photos of these rocks, NASA notes, also show the Murray Formation, large deposits of clay that the Curiosity team plans to be one of the last objects on top of Mount Sharp to be examined by NASA's fourth rover.
Now the rover is in a temporary stop associated with the onset of the Christmas weekend in the United States. On January 3, scientists expect him to continue climbing to the top of the mountain in the center of Gale Crater and approach the purple cobblestones, which will be "fired" from the ChemCam laser cannon to study their chemical composition. The problems with the Curiosity drill, which appeared at the end of November, were partially resolved on December 16, which leaves hope that the rover will be able not only to fire, but also to "touch" these purple rocks.
Promotional video:
Over the past year, according to Lauren Edgar, a geologist on the Curiosity science team, the rover traveled about three kilometers, drilled six rocks and took two samples of Martian matter. Due to the difficult terrain and problems with flimsy aluminum wheels, Curiosity climbed only 85 meters to the summit of Mount Sharp. Scientists hope that this process will go faster next year, and the rover will be able to solve its main scientific and research problem.