The Perseverance Mars rover has been making headlines lately as it sets up a sample depot on the red planet and makes its way toward an ancient river delta. But its predecessor is still on Mars, too, and Curiosity is making its own discoveries even after more than a decade. As it ascends Mount Sharp, Curiosity has stumbled upon a fascinating rock formation — ripples left in ancient sediment by the planet’s long-lost water.
Curiosity arrived on Mars in 2012 and has been so successful that NASA opted to use its design as the base for Perseverance. It landed in Gale Crater and began making its way to Mount Sharp, the central peak of the crater. The rover was outfitted with instruments to assess the climate and geology of Mars to assess whether the conditions in the crater may have been compatible with life. Understanding the role of water in the planet’s distant past is a major element of the mission.
Last year, Curiosity reached the sulfate-bearing unit of Mount Sharp. This salt-rich region is believed to contain deposits left as the planet began drying up. However, the team didn’t expect to find evidence of waves. The rover has sent back images of a rippling texture in the rock, which was once sediment at the bottom of a body of water. “This is the best evidence of water and waves that we’ve seen in the entire mission,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Curiosity discovered the wave ripples about half a mile above the base of Mount Sharp in what has been termed the “Marker Band.” This layer of dark, hard rock stands out from the rest of the rusty landscape. The rock here is so hard that Curiosity has been unable to drill a sample of it. The team is still looking for an area with softer rock to get a sample for analysis. Unlike Perseverance, Curiosity is not outfitted with the hardware to save samples for a future return to Earth — it can only do science in its onboard laboratory. Curiosity will spend a little more time hunting for the right rocks in the Marker Band, but there are more discoveries awaiting higher on Mount Sharp.
The Curiosity team is looking ahead to a valley known as Gediz Vallis, which the rover could see from a distance at several points last year. NASA believes Gediz Vallis was carved by water, and there is evidence of wet landslides. This could be one of the youngest geological features on Mount Sharp. There is currently no planned end date for the Curiosity mission — it’ll keep rolling until its deformed, perforated wheels give out.
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