Footage of Mars released by NASA

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:01:48][music] >> This is an impact [music] crater in southern Elysium Planitia on Mars.

[00:02:34]This area was covered by a large flood of lava, which can be seen as the generally flat areas surrounding the crater.

[00:02:42]As the lava flowed across, some of it flowed into this crater through a low spot along the crater rim.

[00:02:48]Once in the crater, the lava heated ground water or ground ice in the floor, causing the water to boil >> [music] >> and turn into steam.

[00:02:57]This steam then exploded through the overlying lava and created small, ring-shaped formations. These are called rootless cones, and they record the presence of ground water or ground ice in the crater floor at the time of the lava eruptions.

[00:04:04]>> Curiosity rover recently drilled a sample from a new region with features that could reveal whether Mars subsurface once provided an environment suitable for life.

[00:04:15]The region inside Gale [music] crater had previously been observed only from orbit and the images and data being collected from there are already raising new questions about how the Martian surface was changing billions of [music] years ago.

[00:04:31]The red planet once had rivers, lakes, and possibly an ocean. Although scientists aren't sure why >> [music] >> its water eventually dried up and the planet transformed into the chilly desert it [music] is today.

[00:04:44]By the time Curiosity's current location formed, the long-lived lakes were gone, but water was still percolating under the surface.

[00:04:53]The rover found dramatic evidence of that ground water when it encountered crisscrossing [music] low ridges, some just a few inches tall, arranged in what geologists call a boxwork [music] pattern.

[00:05:05]The bedrock below these ridges likely formed when ground water trickling through the rock left behind minerals that accumulated in those cracks and fissures, [music] hardening and becoming cement-like.

[00:05:18]Eons of sand blasting by Martian wind wore away the rock but not the minerals, revealing networks of resistant ridges within.

[00:05:28]The ridges Curiosity has seen so far >> [music] >> look a bit like a crumbling curb. The boxwork patterns stretch across many miles of a layer on Mount Sharp, whose foothills the rover has been climbing since 2014.

[00:05:42]Intriguingly, boxwork [music] patterns haven't been spotted anywhere else on the mountain, either by Curiosity or [music] orbiters passing overhead.

[00:05:52]A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns [music] and why only here. As Curiosity drives on, it will be studying the ridges and mineral cements to help [music] NASA scientists understand how they formed.

[00:06:07]Important to the boxwork patterns history is the part of the mountain where they're found. Mount Sharp consists of multiple layers, each of which formed during [music] different eras of ancient Martian climate.

[00:06:19]Curiosity essentially time travels as it ascends from the oldest to youngest layers, searching for signs of water and environments that could have supported [music] ancient microbial life.

[00:06:32]The rover is currently exploring a layer with an abundance of salty minerals called magnesium sulfates, which form as water dries up.

[00:06:40]Their presence here suggests this layer emerged as the climate became [music] drier.

[00:06:46]Remarkably, the boxwork patterns show that even in the midst of this drying, water was still present underground, creating changes seen today. [music] Scientists hope to gain more insight into why the boxwork patterns formed [music] here, and Mars recently provided some unexpected clues.

[00:07:05]The bedrock between the boxwork ridges has a different composition than other layers of Mount Sharp. It also has lots of tiny fractures filled with white veins of calcium sulfate, another salty mineral [music] left behind as groundwater trickles through rock cracks.

[00:07:22]Similar veins were plentiful on lower layers of the mountain, including one enriched with clays, but had more or less disappeared as Curiosity >> [music] >> climbed higher up Mount Sharp.

[00:07:33]Since they later returned in the higher regions of the mountain, scientists are excited to figure out why.

[00:09:10]>> This view spans from wall to wall across the center area of an impact crater.

[00:09:16]From what can be seen, a lot has happened to modify the appearance of the crater since it was formed, [music] and this subsequent activity is the main interest of this observation.

[00:09:28]First, the crater is no longer deep and bowl-like. It is shallow and generally flat across its interior, indicating it has been filled with material.

[00:09:39]The small-scale relief features of this filled surface give clues as to what has happened. The parallel wavy ridges suggest that the material was able to move and flow, perhaps in several successive stages, [music] and likely due to the presence of ice in the ground.

[00:09:56]The fine-scale pits and larger-scale depressions suggest that more recently some of this ice may have disappeared by changing directly from a solid [music] to a gas into the atmosphere, therefore deflating the surface.

[00:10:10]This story of deposition and loss of ice-rich material, possibly occurring over several cycles over the recent part of Mars' history or longer, and possibly continuing today, is consistent with similar features in the broader region of the Utopia basin on Mars.

[00:14:03]>> The Curiosity rover has revealed many surprises on the surface of Mars, but it's most recent one is of a totally different kind.

[00:14:13]On April 25th, 2026, the rover [snorts] drilled into a rock [music] to collect samples. But when the rover retracted its arm, the entire rock lifted out of the ground suspended by the fixed sleeve that surrounds the rotating drill bit.

[00:14:29]While drilling has fractured or separated the upper layers of rocks in the past, [music] but a rock has never remained attached to the drill sleeve.

[00:14:37]The rover team initially tried vibrating the drill to shake off the rock, but saw no change.

[00:14:44]Then on April 29th, they tried reorienting Curiosity's robotic arm and vibrating [music] the drill again. This led to sand falling from the rock, but the rock stayed attached to [music] the rover.

[00:14:57]Finally, on May 1st, Curiosity's team tried again tilting the drill more, rotating and vibrating the drill, and spinning the drill bit. The team planned to perform these actions multiple times, but the rock came off on the first round fracturing as it hit the ground.

[00:15:16]The rock that got stuck is nicknamed [music] Atacama and can be seen here in close-up detail. It's an estimated 1.5 ft in diameter at its base, 6 in thick, and weighs roughly 28.6 lb on Earth and about a third of that on Mars. The circular hole produced by Curiosity's drill is also visible in the rock.