NASA Keeping Busy or Opportunity Hits the Beach

If you missed the live webcast in #Wingnut, you might have missed the news about Mars being covered in a salty sea. After having announced some weeks ago that certain rocks on Mars had touched water, their latest findings confirm that the rocks were formed under a sea on the Mars surface. Along with other evidence, this makes the Opportunity rover landing site one of the most likely candidate locations for past life fossil formation. You can find out more on this mission (as well as other information including news of potential tenth planet and a the new orbiter) at the official Nasa site.

This magnified view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity of a portion of a martian rock called "Upper Dells" shows fine layers (laminae) that are truncated, discordant and at angles to each other. Interpretive black lines trace cross-lamination that indicates the sediments that formed the rock were laid down in flowing water.