Nearly eight years ago, NASA's Opportunity Rover vehicle landed on Mars to explore the Red Planet with its highly sensitive sensors and send the precious data back to Earth.
All this years of exploring certanly paid off, for the researches announced yesterday (December 7th), Rover discovered a thin and bright mineral vein along the rim of a huge crater named Endeavour.
The mineral is almost for sure gypsium - a very soft sulfate mineral - that was accumulated by water billions of years ago, according to researchers.
A picture of the actual mineral vein called "Homestake", taken by NASA's Rover Opportunity panoramic camera. "This is the single most powerful piece of evidence for liquid water at Mars that has been discovered by the Opportunity rover," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Opportunity's principal investigator.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity arm's shadow near a bright mineral vein informally named Homestake.
