This photo, taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on March 18, 2015, shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called \"Garden City\" in the foothills of Mount Sharp.(NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS) <\/p>\n
This image, taken by the Curiosity rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager on Mars 25, 2015, is a close-up of a two-tone mineral vein at the Garden City site in the lower reaches of Mount Sharp.(NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS) <\/p>\n
NASA's Curiosity rover has photographed some Martian rocks that bear a passing resemblance to a tasty frozen treat. <\/p>\n
The rocks, which lie at a site dubbed Garden City near the base of Mars' 3.4-mile-high Mount Sharp, harbor ridges up to 2.5 inches tall that are composed of bright and dark mineral veins. <\/p>\n
\"Some of them look like ice-cream sandwiches: dark on both edges and white in the middle,\" Curiosity science team member Linda Kah of the University of Tennessee said in a statement. \"These materials tell us about secondary fluids that were transported through the region after the host rock formed.\" [Latest Photos from NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity] <\/p>\n
The car-size Curiosity rover touched down in August 2012, on a mission to determine if Mars could ever have supported microbial life. The rover found evidence of an ancient, habitable lake-and-stream system at a spot near its landing site called Yellowknife Bay. <\/p>\n
The fluid movement responsible for the Garden City veins was likely more recent than the conditions that formed the Yellowknife Bay lake, which probably existed around 3.5 billion years ago. <\/p>\n
\"Mud that formed lake-bed mudstones Curiosity examined near its 2012 landing site and after reaching Mount Sharp must have dried and hardened before the fractures formed,\" NASA officials wrote in the statement. \"The dark material that lines the fracture walls reflects an earlier episode of fluid flow than the white, calcium-sulfate-rich veins do, although both flows occurred after the cracks formed.\" <\/p>\n
Mount Sharp has long been Curiosity's main science destination. Mission team members want the rover to climb up through the mountain's foothills, reading a history of Mars' changing environmental conditions as it goes. <\/p>\n
Curiosity reached the foot of Mount Sharp in September 2014. The six-wheeled robot then spent six months exploring the bottom layers of an outcrop called Pahrump Hills, drilling into three different rocks to collect samples for analysis. <\/p>\n
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Mars rover Curiosity spots 'ice cream sandwich' rocks (Photos)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This photo, taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on March 18, 2015, shows a network of two-tone mineral veins at an area called \"Garden City\" in the foothills of Mount Sharp.(NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS) This image, taken by the Curiosity rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager on Mars 25, 2015, is a close-up of a two-tone mineral vein at the Garden City site in the lower reaches of Mount Sharp.(NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS) NASA's Curiosity rover has photographed some Martian rocks that bear a passing resemblance to a tasty frozen treat. The rocks, which lie at a site dubbed Garden City near the base of Mars' 3.4-mile-high Mount Sharp, harbor ridges up to 2.5 inches tall that are composed of bright and dark mineral veins. Continue reading