Mars Not A Simple ‘Basaltic’ Planet: Know More About It Here

On August 6, 2012, the Curiosity rover landed on the dusty surfaces of the red planet, beginning its mission to find evidence of whether or not it has environmental conditions that could be conducive for microbial life. Less than a year later, NASA reported that it achieved its primary objective - scientists found that there are traces of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, phosphorous, and carbon on the planet - elements that are all essential in supporting living organisms.

Reaching out to drill down. @MarsCuriosity extends arm over bedrock target for drilling: https://t.co/7eZCMtwdg9 pic.twitter.com/TW5XbQickE

— NASA (@NASA) August 6, 2016

The mission was scheduled to end this year, but according to Phys.org, it was given a two-year-extension with Professor John Bridges of the University of Leicester, as part of the extended NASA Science Team. The professor shared, "It's been a great four years - from the excitement of landing we have now had 1421 Martian days of operations and driven 13.6 km. We have learnt an enormous amount about Mars."

He then went on to explain that the idea of Mars being a simple basaltic planet has been disproved, as ancient lakes and silica-rich crusts were found - Mars is not all sand.

Speaking of sand, the Curiosity Rover also found last month that although both Earth and Mars have sand dunes that are very similar in their characteristics, there is something extra found on the red planet. According to Seeker.com, Mars dunes have small impact ripples and medium-sized sinuous ripples that can be seen from space. The Martian sinuous ripples are being dragged by the planet's thin atmosphere to form a larger-sized ripples on the sand dunes. Scientists say that the size of these ripples are related to the density of the fluid moving in the grains, showing that Mars may have a thicker atmosphere in the past and the ripples in themselves recorded the thinning of the planet's own atmosphere.