London - It is the most expensive Wish You Were Here? postcard in history.
These incredible images show the craggy mountainside where Curiosity, Nasa’s £1.6-billion planetary explorer, hopes to discover signs that life once existed on Mars.
The six-wheeled rover, which landed earlier this month, will edge its way to the foot of the mountain, 6.2 miles away, to scratch around in the dirt, dust and soil.
Chemical analysis of those samples should reveal whether Mars ever had the organic materials that could support life and may help answer one of the greatest questions of science: is life unique to Earth or did it once exist elsewhere in the Solar System?
Science fiction writers have speculated about intelligent Martians since Victorian times. However, scientists now suspect that the Red Planet is dead – but that it may once have been home to alien bacteria or moss.
Bugs and moss might not sound like intelligent little green men, but their one-time presence would mean that life has evolved – or been deposited by comets or asteroids – on two of the eight planets of our Solar System.
And if life is relatively common in our small corner of the galaxy, then surely the universe must be teaming with it.
The latest images are the most detailed yet from the nuclear- powered 2,000lb Curiosity, which landed in the Gale Crater, south of Mars’s equator.
They show layers of rocks – similar to the red and grey tiers of the Grand Canyon in Arizona in the US – near the base of the three-mile high Mount Sharp at the centre of the 96-mile-wide crater.
The colour of one of the images – taken by Curiosity’s 100mm telephoto camera, one of 17 on board – is enhanced to show the scene under the same lighting conditions here on Earth, which helps scientists to analyse the terrain.
Previous surveys of Mars have shown the layers contain clays and other minerals that usually form in the presence of water.
Although Mars is now a desert planet, millions of years ago its surface was carved by oceans, lakes and waterfalls.
The gravelly land in the foreground of the main picture is the landing area, named Bradbury Landing in tribute to the American science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, who died in June.
The ground eventually rises up to the edge of a crater, behind which lies a field of darker dunes leading up to the bottom of Mount Sharp. The peak of the mountain is ten miles away. What has intrigued Nasa about these pictures is the peculiar nature of the layers of rock on the mountainside.
Although those near the crater floor are horizontal, the ones higher up have been twisted by geological forces over millions of years and are sharply inclined – exactly the reverse of similar features found on Earth.
In the Grand Canyon, for instance, the rock layers near the bottom have been buckled and tilted by the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates. But the more recent layers on top are horizontal.
The difference on Mars suggests layers of rock were deposited quickly by violent winds or currents.
As well as the surprising tilt of the Martian rocks, their composition has intrigued scientists who plan to use the rover’s array of gadgets to seek out signs of past, or current, life in the layers of rock.
Among these are the ChemCam, which uses a laser to vaporise soil and rock samples before analysing their chemical make-up. However, anyone hoping for a quick answer to the question of life will be disappointed. For the rover will take nearly a year to trundle over to the mountainside.
Eventually, Nasa wants to send a manned mission and its publicity machine is eager to whip up enthusiasm for all things Mars.
That explains why on Tuesday, at 9pm, the space agency was preparing to broadcast a new track by Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am from the rover.
It was – Nasa informed the world – the first time a pop song has been broadcast on another planet.
What any hiding Martians will think, heavens knows. Let’s just hope they don’t mistake it for a declaration of war. - Daily Mail