River pebbles Mars transferred tens of kilometers, scientists have found – RIA Novosti

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© AP Photo / NASA

MOSCOW, October 13 – RIA Novosti. Mars rover Curiosity has opened in line with ancient river on Mars unusually round pebbles, whose study has helped scientists prove that the rivers of the Red Planet were sufficiently rugged to endure small stones for tens of kilometers downstream, said in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.

“Thousands of years ago, Aristotle first thought about why pebbles on the beach has a round shape and how it there at all was in. So far, we almost did not know anything about the processes that are responsible for the purchase of pebbles its characteristic shape” – says Douglas Dzherolmak (Douglas Jerolmack) from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (USA).

Dzherolmak and several other planetary scientists led by John Grottsingera (John Grotzinger), former head of the mission Curiosity, were able for the first time to estimate the turbulence and the strength of Mars Rivers by two things – the opening of a pebble on Mars rover cameras and unusual study in Puerto Rico.

As Dzherolmak explains, he and his colleagues at the university noticed unusual round stones, analyzing the images that the rover was during one of the regular sites in line with dry river on the way to Mount Sharp. The discovery of stone resembling river pebbles, led scientists to wonder whether it is possible to extract from them more information about how to behave waterways Mars in the past.

The answer to this question was not easy – long search in the literature have shown, that no one before this is not interested in how large boulders, carried away by the waters of the rivers, gradually transformed into pebbles. To understand how this happens, the authors went on an expedition to one of the mountain rivers in Puerto Rico.

© Photo: The Russian team MDRS-129

The scientists have bypassed the whole river from source to mouth, catching local stones and pebbles and studying the shape and dimensions of each stone. This enabled them, together with the theory describing the behavior of an unusual mathematical figury- “gembets” having a perfect balance, to prepare a set formula for calculating how far one or another stone swam with the waters of the river.

After this Dzherolmak appealed for help to Grottsingeru and authors, with the assistance of NASA, examined dozens of photos of the Martian pebbles. According to their calculations, the stones found Curiosity, lost about 20% of the total.

It is said that they have been very solid away with the waters of the river – about 30-50 kilometers. The source of these stones, as calculations show Grottsingera was the edge of the crater Gale, located just 50 kilometers from the point where the pebble was found. All this, as scientists believe, suggests that on Mars in the distant past flowed pretty wild rivers.