Wet History
Opportunity spent about half a year exploring Endurance. During that time, data collected by the rover supplanted and greatly expanded on the history of water at Meridiani Planum, in addition to the confirmation that there had been liquid water here in ancient times. Endurance provided mission scientists with a cross-section of the bedrock on this part of Mars, showing that liquid water hadn't flowed across the surface just once, but was of an episodic nature, and wasn't permanently present, with floods periodically washing over the landscape, and then drying up again. Interpretation of the materials (such as sulfates) in Endurance's evaporite outcrops led mission scientists to believe that this shallow sea was probably rather acidic in nature, but can't rule out that life couldn't have been present at some point.
Read more about this topic: Endurance (crater)
Famous quotes containing the words wet and/or history:
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—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)