Mars Landing: UC Davis Geologist Helped Pick Crater to Study

The next Mars rover will land in Gale crater near the Martian equator, thanks in part to a UC Davis geologist.

The site was chosen based on “reachable science,” said Dawn Summer, who is also co-chair of the landing site working group for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

“We will learn a huge amount about the Martian environment,” Summer said at a press conference in Washington, DC this morning.

Gale crater has evidence of past presence of water and a three-mile-high set of sedimentary rock layers that represent tens of millions of years of history.

The presence of clay minerals and sulfate salts are indicators that water was once present.

The missions is scheduled to take off in August, 2012.