Curiosity’s Mars Rover explores a changing landscape

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars probe used the Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this 360-degree view on July 3, 2021. The panorama consists of 129 individual images sent back to Earth, which are then stitched together. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A new video rings in the ninth year of the Mars rover, allowing viewers to tour Curiosity’s location on Mars’ mountain.

Images of jagged rocks and rolling hills delight scientists as NASA’s Curiosity rover climbs Mount Sharp, a 5-mile (8-kilometer) high mountain within the 96-mile-wide (154-kilometre) Martian basin. Gale Crater. The Rover’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, highlights those features in a panorama taken on July 3, 2021 (Mars day 3,167 or the mission’s Sol day).

This site is particularly exciting: the Mars orbiter shows that Curiosity is now located somewhere between a region rich in clay minerals and one dominated by salty minerals called sulfates. The mountain layers in this area may reveal how the ancient environment within Gale Crater has dried up over time. Similar changes were seen across the planet, and studying this region closely was a major long-term goal of the mission.

“The rocks here will begin to tell us how this once-wet planet has changed to dry Mars today, and how long habitable environments persist even after this happens,” said Abigail Freeman, Curiosity’s deputy project scientist, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. . Southern California.

This video tour highlights a new panorama from NASA’s Curiosity Mars spacecraft, captured on July 3, 2021 (Mars day 3,167, or the mission’s Sol day). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Nine years on Mars

Curiosity landed nine years ago, on August 5, 2012 PDT (August 6, 2012 EDT), to study whether different Martian environments could have supported microbial life in the planet’s ancient past, when lakes and groundwater existed within the Gale Crater.

The rover pulverizes the rock samples with a drill on its robotic arm, then sprays the powder into the rover body, where a pair of tools identifies the chemicals and minerals present. Curiosity recently drilled its 32nd rock sample from a target dubbed “Pontours” that will help detail the transition from the clay mineral zone to the sulfate-dominated one.

Since it’s winter at the Curiosity site, the sky in the new panorama is relatively dust-free, providing a clear view all the way down to the floor of Gale Crater. It provided an opportunity for the mission team to reflect on the 16 miles (26 kilometers) that Curiosity drove during the mission.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has used a drill on its robotic arm to take 32 rock samples so far. The Mars Handheld Imaging Lens (MAHLI), a camera located at the end of the robotic arm, provided the images in this mosaic. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“The day of landing remains one of the happiest days of my career,” said new mission project manager Megan Richardson Lane of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Lin began working on Curiosity just before its launch, and joined the Surface Operations team shortly thereafter. She has held several roles on the mission since then. “We are driving a robot as it explores another planet. Seeing how new discoveries and scientific findings inform daily activities is very rewarding.”

There is more to discover in the future. Curiosity has already begun a winding path between “Rafael Navarro Mountain,” recently nicknamed in honor of a deceased mission scientist, and a painting towering taller than a four-story building. Next year, the rover will transcend these two features in a ravine before revisiting the “Greenheugh Pediment,” a sandstone-covered cliff that the rover briefly summarized last year.

Curiosity reaches its 33rd day on Mars

Quote: Curiosity Mars rover exploring a changing landscape (2021, August 18) Retrieved August 18, 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2021-08-curiosity-mars-rover-explores-landscape.html

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