page_title: Timeline of Mars Science Laboratory
section_title: 2015 events
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of Mars Science Laboratory / 2015 events
caption_attribution_description: English: PIA19809: Curiosity Finds Hydrogen-Rich Area of Mars Subsurface http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19809 Curiosity's Russian-made instrument for checking hydration levels in the ground beneath the rover detected an unusually high amount at a site near "Marias Pass," prompting repeated passes over the area to map the hydrogen amounts. The instrument is named Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons, or DAN. It detects hydrogen by the effect of hydrogen atoms on neutrons entering the ground either from cosmic rays and Curiosity's power source (DAN's passive mode) or from the instrument's neutron pulse generator (DAN's active mode). DAN recognizes which neutrons have bounced off hydrogen from their rerduced energy level. This map, covering an area about 130 feet (40 meters) across, shows results from DAN's multiple traverses over the area, with color coding for levels of hydrogen detected. The red coding indicates amounts of hydrogen three to four times as high as the amounts detected anywhere previously along Curiosity's traverse of about 6.9 miles (11.1 kilometers) since landing in August 2012. The inset map at lower right shows the full traverse through Sol 1051 (July 21, 2015), with names assigned to rectangles within Gale Crater for geological mapping purposes. The vertical bar at left indicates the color coding according to counts per second in DAN's passive mode. The hydrogen detected by DAN is interpreted as water molecules or hydroxyl ions bound within minerals or water absorbed onto minerals in the rocks and soil, to a depth of about 3 feet (1 meter) beneath the rover. The amount of hydrogen is often expressed as "water equivalent hydrogen" based on two hydrogen atoms per molecule of water. In the same area where DAN detected an unusually high amount of hydration, Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument detected an unusually high amount of silica in several rock targets. The DAN and ChemCam findings led to the rover's science team choosing a rock target called "Buckskin" for collection of a drilled sample to be analyzed by the rover's internal laboratory instruments. Russia's Space Research Institute developed DAN in close cooperation with the N.L. Dukhov All-Russia Research Institute of Automatics, Moscow, and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna. The neutron generator development was supervised by the late technical designer German A. Smirnov of the All-Russia Institute of Automatics. Moscow. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the rover. More information about Curiosity is online at http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/.
context_page_description: The Mars Science Laboratory and its rover, Curiosity, were launched from Earth on November 26, 2011. As of August 29, 2020, Curiosity has been on the planet Mars for 2867 sols since landing on August 5, 2012.
context_section_description: On January 21, 2015, NASA announced a collaborative effort with Microsoft that developed a software project called OnSight which allows scientists to perform virtual work on Mars based on data from the Curiosity rover.
  On March 6, 2015, NASA reported performing tests on the rover to help uncover the reason for intermittent problems with the robotic arm used for rock drilling and analysis. Results of preliminary tests suggest the intermittent short-circuit problem may be related to the percussion mechanism of the drill. Further tests are planned to verify and adjust to the problem.
  On March 24, 2015, NASA reported the first detection of nitrogen released after heating surface sediments on the planet Mars. The nitrogen, in the form of nitric oxide, was detected by the SAM instrument on the Curiosity rover and can be used by living organisms. The discovery supports the notion that ancient Mars may have been habitable for life.
  On March 27, 2015, NASA reported that the landing site was fading from view in the two-and-a-half years since landing in 2012, as shown in the following animation:
  On April 4, 2015, NASA reported studies, based on measurements by the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument on the Curiosity rover, of the Martian atmosphere using xenon and argon isotopes. Results provided support for a "vigorous" loss of atmosphere early in the history of Mars and were consistent with an atmospheric signature found in bits of atmosphere captured in some Martian meteorites found on Earth.
  On August 19, 2015, NASA scientists reported that the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument on the Curiosity rover detected an unusual hydrogen-rich area, at "Marias Pass," on Mars. The hydrogen found seemed related to water or hydroxyl ions in rocks within three feet beneath the rover, according to the scientists.
  On October 5, 2015, possible recurrent slope lineae, wet brine flows, were reported on Mount Sharp near Curiosity. In addition, on October 5, 2015, NASA reported an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 heat-resistant bacterial spores were on Curiosity at launch, as much as 1,000 times more than that may not have been counted.
  On October 8, 2015, NASA confirmed that lakes and streams existed in Gale crater 3.3 - 3.8 billion years ago delivering sediments to build up the lower layers of Mount Sharp.
  On December 17, 2015, NASA reported that as Curiosity climbed higher up Mount Sharp, the composition of rocks were changing substantially. For example, rocks found higher up the mountain contained much higher levels of silica than the basaltic rocks found earlier. After further analysis, the silica-rich rocks on Mars were found to be tridymite, a mineral that is not commonly found on Earth. Opal-A, another form of silica, was also found on Mars.
caption: Hydrogen-rich area detected at 'Marias Pass" on Mars by Curiosity.[171]
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