Tag: ancient crater

THREE years of trundling across treacherous dunes has brought NASA's Opportunity rover to its most significant target yet - a huge crater called Endeavour that was once soaked with water and could hold clues as to whether there was ever life on Mars.

Orbital observations suggest the rocks on Endeavour's rim are more than 3.5 billion years old and so date from the earliest, wettest phase of Martian history, when water carved out vast drainage channels across the planet. Until now, neither Opportunity nor its now-defunct sister Spirit (see "The rovers at a glance") had examined rocks that clearly date from this period.