Curiosity has met one of its major goals: sampling Martian clay. The rover drilled into the dirt in the Gale Crater, NASA said in a press conference yesterday (March 12), and extracted a clay sample that, according to analysis by the rover’s instruments, would have been formed in a wet, neutral, and slightly salty environment favorable to life.
“We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it,” John Grotzinger, head scientist for the mission and a California Institute of Technology geologist, said during the press conference.
NASA scientists chose to land the rover in Gale Crater because satellite ...
