Curiosity rover confirms ancient Martian lake

View from Yellowknife Bay in Gale crater, looking west-northwest. This area of sedimentary deposits is now known to be the former bottom of a freshwater lake. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
View from Yellowknife Bay in Gale crater, looking west-northwest. This area of sedimentary deposits is now known to be the former bottom of a freshwater lake. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Some exciting new results from the Curiosity rover mission on Mars were announced yesterday at this year’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. Basically, as previously suspected, Curiosity landed in an ancient lakebed inside Gale crater, and those habitable conditions apparently lasted for a longer time than previously thought.

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Billions of potentially Earth-like planets in our galaxy

Astronomers now estimate that about one in five sun-like stars in our galaxy has an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone. Credit: UC Berkeley
Astronomers now estimate that about one in five sun-like stars in our galaxy has an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone. Credit: UC Berkeley

Some exciting exoplanet news this week: based on the newest data from the Kepler space telescope, astronomers now estimate that there are billions of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy which are about the same size as Earth and orbit in the habitable zone of their stars, it was announced yesterday.

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Will Curiosity find new clues to ancient Martian habitability, or perhaps even life, at Hematite Ridge?

Hematite ridge, as seen from near Curiosity's landing site, a few kilometres away. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / annotated by A. Fraeman
Hematite Ridge, as seen from near Curiosity’s landing site, a few kilometres away. Click on image for larger version. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / annotated by A. Fraeman

As the Curiosity rover gets ever closer to its major destination of Mount Sharp, there is an interesting feature there which has become a priority target, one which may help scientists to further study the past habitability of this area, or even provide possible clues to life itself.

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Three ‘super-Earth’ planets discovered orbiting in habitable zone of nearby star

Artist's conception of the view from one of three super-Earth planets orbiting the star Gliese 667C, showing all three stars of the Gliese 667 system.
Artist’s conception of the view from one of three super-Earth planets orbiting the star Gliese 667C, showing all three stars of the Gliese 667 system. Credit: ESO

There is some exciting news today regarding exoplanets – for the first time, multiple planets have been found orbiting within the habitable zone of their star, the region where temperatures can allow liquid water to exist on planets with rocky surfaces, like Earth. The news release was published this morning by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

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