Curiosity continues its 2-year mission on Mars

The US Aerospace Agency announced on October 3 that the Curiosity continues its journey toward Mount Sharp on Mars's surface - part of the mission that has been extended for two more years of this self-propelled vessel, starting from October 1 last.

NASA said the new destinations include a hematite-rich peak, 2.5 km from Curiosity, and a rocky area with a lot of exposed clay behind it.

Earlier, the Curiosity collected rock powder from the Murray Buttes area , a mountain peak during the formation of Mount Sharp. The above sites are all about 180 meters thick, called Murray Formation.

The Curiosity has climbed half of this geological layer and discovered that this layer is composed mainly of gray sedimentary rocks formed from mud, accumulated at the bottom of the ancient lakes.

Curiosity continues its journey toward Mount Sharp on Mars's surface.(Source: NASA).

The findings show that the lake environment on Mars was very stable for a long time. It is expected that in the first half of the two-year extension of the mission, the Curiosity will take the time to study the rest of Murray.

Scientist from the Curiosity Ship Project, Ashwin Vasavada, said the vessel is continuing to search for younger and higher ground levels of Mount Sharp, 5,500m high, where the vessel has been exploring for 4 years and still has the potential to detect unexpected information about Mars.

According to Mr. Vasavada, the thickness of Murray Formation shows the existence of ancient lakes as well as the conditions that can form life here.

The Curiosity probe, weighing 2 tons, with a total cost of $ 2.5 billion, landed on Mars on August 6, 2012 with the mission to search for signs and proof of life on Mars within 2 years. .

By 2014, Curiosity reached the foot of Mount Sharp after finding evidence of large plains surrounding ancient lakes on the Red planet may have created conditions for bacteria to form.

After being renewed for the first two years, NASA continued to extend Curosity's mission for another two years this summer.

This program was developed to study the Red Planet environment in preparation for the possible human invasion in the coming years.

US President Barack Obama has vowed to bring people to Mars by 2030.