Like many Americans, this summer, NASA's Curiosity rover is embarking on a road trip — but on Mars. The nearly eight-year-old mission will be guided through a traverse roughly 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) long that will see it climb farther up a mountain to learn more about the planet's history — and whether it could have been habitable for microbial life in its ancient past. Curiosity is on its way to an area on the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 km) Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) nicknamed the "sulfate-bearing unit." It usually forms sulfates around water as it evaporates, and these leftovers could provide more information about how the surface of Mars changed roughly three billion years ago when the planet lost most of its atmosphere and running water was no longer possible on the surface. Read on...
