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Exploring the canal of Mars

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Luxury problem for NASA: Should Curiosity continue to travel through a canal that could have once been a river in ancient times, or should the Mars rover explore a mountain ridge? This is what NASA hopes to achieve from the chosen course.

The Mars rover recently found itself at a crossroads: The NASA vehicle had been exploring the gorge called Gediz Vallis for the past few months and had now arrived at Pinnacle Ridge – the ridge is part of the rock face that towers over Gediz Vallis. It turned out that the south side of Pinnacle Ridge is passable. According to a blog post from the space agency, this presented NASA with a dilemma: should the rover continue to travel along the suspected fossil riverbed, as planned, or should it rather explore the southern slope of the mountain and learn more about its composition and the role of water in its past experience?

Ultimately, NASA decided to stay on the planned course. The excursion to the south side of the massif would have taken too much time. Additionally, Curiosity had already explored the north side of Pinnacle Ridge. According to NASA, the southern part would not have provided any new insights.

Research into Gediz Vallis is intended to provide NASA with insight into the question of when liquid water disappeared from Mars. Billions of years ago, the planet is said to have been significantly wetter and probably warmer than it is today. Data from Curiosity last fall, combined with computer simulations and other experiments, indicated that there were more rivers on Mars than expected – which in turn suggests diverse life in the past of our neighboring planet.

Gediz Vallis has a serpentine, winding shape. According to NASA, at least in the top view from space, its appearance suggests that flowing water formed it ancient times. The sides of the canal were too steep for wind to carve it into the ground.

The rover is intended to prove this theory. For example, he should check whether the boulders in the canal could have been caused by dry avalanches or wet landslides.

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