Mission Overview and Scientific Contributions from the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover After Eight Years of Surface Operations.

ABSTRACT: NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, with its Curiosity rover, has been exploring Gale crater (5.4° S, 137.8° E) since 2012 with the goal of assessing the potential of Mars to support life. The mission has compiled compelling evidence that the crater basin accumulated sediment transported by marginal rivers into lakes that likely persisted for millions of years approximately 3.6 Ga ago in the early Hesperian. Geochemical and mineralogical assessments indicate that environmental conditions within this timeframe would have been suitable for sustaining life, if it ever were present. Fluids simultaneously circulated in the subsurface and likely existed through the dry phases of lake bed exposure and aeolian deposition, conceivably creating a continuously habitable subsurface environment tha

SUBMITTER: Vasavada AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8981195 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature