NASA rover finds further evidence of past water on Mars

New York Times : Zinc and bromine in a rock that was collected from the rim of Mars’s Endeavour crater and examined by NASA’s Opportunity rover suggest that Mars’s geology may have been formed with heat and water, writes Kenneth Chang for the New York Times. Opportunity, one of a pair of rovers of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission, has been searching for signs of past water on Mars’s surface since 2004. The crater’s rim consists of rocks that were lifted up from below its surface as the result of a long-ago impact. The scientists are especially interested in using Opportunity to get a close-up look at clay deposits there that were detected from orbit by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Such deposits could lend further support to the theory that Mars used to be warmer and wetter. Opportunity—"a very senior rover that’s showing her age,” according to project manager John Callas—has far outlived its original mission and covered much more ground than it was designed to do.