Big news today from the Martian front. New data from everyone’s favorite car-sized roving robot, Curiosity, has come out, with implications for potential life on the Red Planet. At a press conference today at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco, and in a bundle of six Science papers
, scientists announced the extreme likelihood of an ancient lake near Curiosity’s landing site that was habitable for certain microbes, as well as greater details about the geological history of the landing site and the amount of harmful radiation that the rover’s been exposed to. You may be forgiven for thinking this sounds a bit familiar.
Let’s start with what seems like the biggest news, from the most epically titled paper of the bunch: "A Habitable Fluvio-Lacustrine Environment at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars
." (Fluvio-lacustrine, just on the off chance you’re unfamiliar with the term, is a geological ...
