What Curiosity has yet to tell us about Mars
By
Helen Thompson
4:29pm, August 4, 2017
After five years on Mars, the Curiosity rover is an old pro at doing science on the Red Planet. Since sticking its landing on August 5, 2012, NASA’s Little Robot That Could has learned a lot about its environs.
Its charge was simple: Look for signs that Gale crater, a huge impact basin with a mountain at its center, might once have been habitable (for microbes, not Matt Damon). Turning over rocks across the crater, the rover has compiled evidence of ancient water — a lake fed by rivers once occupied the crater itself — and organic compounds and other chemicals essential for life.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/curiosity-mars-rover-five-year-anniversary?tgt=nr
