Mars Explorer Arrives at New Area in Search for Evidence of Water, Life

2024 · VOA Learning English

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1. The American space agency’s Mars explorer, Curiosity, has reached a new area of the planet Mars as it searches for evidence of water and possible

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2. life. The explorer, or rover, recently arrived at an area called the Gediz Vallis Channel.

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3. Researchers said the area was chosen because evidence suggested that it once held large amounts of liquid water.

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4. The term “channel” describes a natural bed that carries water.

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5. Curiosity arrived on Mars in 2012 and began exploring areas around the planet’s huge Gale Crater.

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6. Mars is a cold, dry desert today. But the Gale Crater area is believed to have contained a lake at one time and has shown other evidence of flowing water in the past.

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7. A large meteor strike about 3.7 billion years ago is believed to have formed the crater

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8. At the time, scientists believe groundwater filled Gale Crater while additional water flowed in from rivers fed by rain or melting snow.

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9. This is thought to have formed Gale Crater’s large lake.

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10. Since 2014, Curiosity has been exploring an area called Mount Sharp, which sits about five kilometers above the floor of Gale Crater.

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11. NASA said the new area contains formations created “over millions of years amid a changing Martian climate.”

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12. Curiosity will be searching for evidence of ancient water in areas around Gediz Vallis Channel, with studies centered on how the channel formed.

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13. NASA scientists said they do not think wind formed it because the sides of it are too high. From space, the channel looks like an ancient riverbed, the agency said

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14. Last month, Curiosity documented the Gediz Vallis Channel with a 360-degree black-and-white picture

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15. The rover’s new exploring activities can provide scientists with “a new way to study how the presence of both water and the chemical ingredients required for life

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16. The first formations to be examined contain sulfates, which are salty minerals often created when liquid water evaporates

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17. NASA said Curiosity also uncovered evidence of clay minerals in the Mount Sharp area. This suggests past interactions between large amounts of water and rock.

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18. Movements of water and minerals can also produce a material called sediment, particles that settle on the bottom of bodies of water over time.

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19. Examinations of these sediments can provide additional evidence of past water and possible life.

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20. Ashwin Vasavada is a Curiosity project scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

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21. He said in a statement, “If the channel or the debris pile were formed by liquid water, that’s very interesting.”

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22. Vasavada added, “It would mean that fairly late in the story of Mount Sharp after a long dry period water came back, and in a big way.”

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23. NASA currently operates two rovers on Mars. The other one, Perseverance, has been exploring the planet’s Jezero Crater since September 2021.

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24. It has collected rock, soil and atmospheric materials during that time. Jezero Crater is also believed to have contained large water bodies in the distant past.

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25. Materials collected by the rovers are expected to be returned to Earth in the future.

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26. That effort, a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), is planned for 2028. I’m Bryan Lynn.

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