NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Reveals How Water Carved Mount Sharp

Scientists are learning a bit more about the role of water on Mars, thanks to observations by Curiosity. They've found that the Red Planet's Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years.

"If our hypothesis for Mount Sharp holds up, it challenges the notion that warm and wet conditions were transient, local or only underground on Mars," said Ashwin Vasavada, one of the researchers, in a news release. "A more radical explanation is that Mars' ancient, thicker atmosphere raised temperatures above freezing globally, but so far we don't know how the atmosphere did that."

Currently, the Mars rover Curiosity is investigating the lowest sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp, a section of rock 500 feet high, dubbed the Murray formation. In theory, rivers carried sand and silt to the lake, depositing sediments at the mouth of the river to form deltas similar to the ones found at river mouths on Earth.

"We found sedimentary rocks suggestive of small, ancient deltas stacked on top of one another," said Sanjeev Gupta, one of the researchers. "Curiosity crossed a boundary from an environment dominated by rivers to an environment dominated by lakes."

Although earlier evidence has pointed to wet environments on ancient Mars, modeling the ancient climate has yet to identify conditions that could have produced long periods warm enough for stable water on the surface.

"Knowledge we're gaining about Mars' environmental evolution by deciphering how Mount Sharp formed will also help guide plans for future missions to seek signs of Martian life," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

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