Flowing water filled Gale Crater on Mars: Indian-origin scientist

Washington, Oct 9: Around 3.3-3.8 billion years ago, a series of streams and lakes existed on the Red Planet, filling the Gale Crater with sediment deposited as layers that formed the foundation for the mountain named Mouth Sharp, an Indian-origin scientist has revealed. According to Ashwin Vasavada, project scientist with NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the Red Planet appears to have had a more massive atmosphere billions of years ago than it does today, with an active hydrosphere capable of storing water in long-lived lakes. The MSL team has concluded that this water helped to fill Gale Crater, Curiosity's landing site. "Observations from Curiosity rover suggest that a series of long-lived streams and lakes existed at some point in the past, delivering sediment that slowly built up the lower layers of Mount Sharp," explained Vasavada. Using Curiosity data, MSL scientists have pieced together an increasingly coherent and compelling story about the evolution of this region of Mars. Before Curiosity landed on Mars, scientists proposed that Gale Crater had filled with layers of sediments. The new findings were published in the journal Science.