Curiosity Rover's 3 Years of Uncovering Mars Mysteries

First Posted: Aug 05, 2015 03:45 PM EDT

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has officially spent three years moving across the Red Planet. Now, researchers are celebrating this fact by looking back on all of the amazing discoveries the robot has made during that time.

Curiosity landed on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012, pulling off a dramatic touchdown with the help of a rocket-powered "sky crane" that lowered the rover gently to the Martian surface with the help of cables. The rover then set off across the planet to take a closer look at its environment; its goal was to determine whether or not the Red Planet supported, or could have once supported, life.

Curiosity's initial discoveries were promising. It looked at rocks at an area near its landing site called Yellowknife Bay. This revealed that Gale Crater supported a potentially habitable lake-and-stream system in the planet's ancient past.

With that said, researchers still can't say definitively whether or not there was life on the planet. That's why they're continuing to make further discoveries going for. Currently, the team is focusing on a promising patch of rock that has high levels of silica. Researchers hope to find remains of possible ancient organic material within the rock.

"Our view of Gale Crater as an ancient habitable environment has grown tremendously, both spatially and through time in Mars history," said Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview with Discovery News. "And that's really what the rest of the mission will be about as well."

After three years of travel and discovery, Curiosity's discoveries are far from over. It's possible that the rover will be the first to discover whether or not there was life on the Red Planet. So far, things look promising.

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TagsNASA, Mars, Curiosity Rover, Mars Rover Curiosity, Curiosity