Rebecca M. E. Williams

TL;DR: The Curiosity rover discovered fine-grained sedimentary rocks, which are inferred to represent an ancient lake and preserve evidence of an environment that would have been suited to support a martian biosphere founded on chemolithoautotrophy.

TL;DR: The observations suggest that individual lakes were stable on the ancient surface of Mars for 100 to 10,000 years, a minimum duration when each lake was stable both thermally (as liquid water) and in terms of mass balance (with inputs effectively matching evaporation and loss of water to colder regions).

TL;DR: The second ExoMars mission will be launched in 2020 to target an ancient location interpreted to have strong potential for past habitability and for preserving physical and chemical biosignatures (as well as abiotic/prebiotic organics).

TL;DR: Higher abundances of chlorinated hydrocarbons in the mudstone compared with Rocknest windblown materials previously analyzed by Curiosity suggest that indigenous martian or meteoritic organic carbon sources may be preserved in the Mudstone; however, the carbon source for the chlorinatedHydrocarbons is not definitively of martian origin.

TL;DR: Measurements of the energetic particle radiation environment inside the spacecraft during its cruise to Mars are reported, confirming the hazard likely to be posed by this radiation to astronauts on a future potential trip to Mars.