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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Sols 4325-4326: (Not Quite) Dipping Our Toes in the Sand
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Sol 4323 — Martian day 4,323 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 4, 2024, at 00:29:40 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 4, 2024
If you read this blog very often, you know that nearly every time the rover stops for science, MAHLI and APXS focus on interesting (and accessible!) rocks as targets. The rover science team is, after all, built with a lot of geologists. But geology is not all rocks, all the time — sand is former rock that if buried and pressurized long enough will become rock again. Today was time for sand to shine, as the workspace was cut by troughs of sand of different colors and brightnesses, and it had been nearly 500 sols since we acquired our last dedicated sand measurement with APXS and MAHLI. The “Pumice Flat” target was one of the brighter sand patches while “Kidney Lake” was one of the darker sand patches. APXS uses a special placement mode over sand targets so the instrument gets close, but not too close, to the loose material which could foul up the instrument. Not-rock was also the purview of our environmental observations. Navcam is scheduled for imaging seeking out clouds and dust devils, and changes in the sand and dust on top of the rover deck. Both Navcam and Mastcam will make observations to measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere. REMS will keep track of our weather with regular measurements, RAD will monitor our radiation environment, and DAN will look through rock for signs of water beneath our drive path.
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the rover could not ignore bedrock. We managed to squeeze in DRT cleaning of a nice bedrock slab, “Ribbon Fall,” for MAHLI-only imaging. In places, the bedrock slabs were cut by thin veins of darker gray material, similar to dark gray materials we saw in the bedrock on the other side of Gediz Vallis. ChemCam targeted one of these dark gray examples at “Black Divide,” and also rastered across some of the prominent layers visible in the vertical faces in the workspace at the aptly named “Profile View.”
Our imaging efforts could be roughly divided between looking back at our path through Gediz Vallis from our new and higher perspective, and looking ahead to what awaits us. ChemCam planned RMI mosaics back toward a field of the white stones we spent time studying in Gediz Vallis and toward a part of the edge of Gediz Vallis that we did not explore previously. Mastcam looked back at the part of the edge of Gediz Vallis we just traversed, “Pilot Peak,” for clues as to why it sits higher than the bedrock farther from the channel edge. They also targeted “Clyde Spires,” which was a gravel ridge in Gediz Vallis of interest as we drove by it initially. Looking ahead, Mastcam imaged a puzzling gray rock sitting atop the bedrock slabs south of us at target “Buena Vista Grove,” and further south still, they planned a large mosaic covering a very big rock — the spectacular “Texoli” butte that has loomed and will continue to loom over our path for months to come.
Written by Michelle Minitti, Planetary Geologist at Framework
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Last Updated Oct 07, 2024 Related Terms
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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, and Kirk Johnson, Sant director, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, preview NASA’s new Earth Information Center at the museum in Washington on Oct. 7, 2024. The exhibit includes a video wall displaying Earth science data visualizations and videos, an interpretive panel showing Earth’s connected systems, information on our changing world, and an overview of how NASA and the Smithsonian study our home planet.Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls NASA Administrator Bill Nelson joined the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington and agency leadership to unveil the new Earth Information Center exhibit during an early preview on Monday.
“NASA has studied Earth and our changing climate for more than 60 years. The Earth Information Center at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History will expand access to NASA’s data and our decades of Earth observation to even more people,” said Nelson. “Together with the Smithsonian, we are providing detailed, usable, and scalable information to enable the public to better understand the climate crisis and take action in their community.”
The exhibit includes a 32-foot-long, 12-foot-high video wall displaying Earth science data visualizations and videos, interpretive panels showing Earth’s connected systems, information on our changing world, and an overview of how NASA and the Smithsonian study our home planet. It opens to the public Tuesday, Oct. 8.
“The new Earth Information Center at the National Museum of Natural History will bring Smithsonian and NASA data on the Earth’s environment and climate to thousands of museum visitors every year,” said Kirk Johnson, the museum’s Sant director. “It is an honor to partner with NASA to bring this dynamic view of Earth to museumgoers and connect people more deeply with their home planet.”
Visitors also can explore Earth observing missions, changes in Earth’s landscape over time, and how climate is expected to change regionally through multiple interactive experiences. The exhibit will remain on display through 2028.
“The Earth Information Center allows people to see our planet as we at NASA see it – an awe-inspiring and complex system of oceans, land, ice, atmosphere, and the life they support,” said Karen St. Germain, division director, Earth Sciences Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are thrilled that this collaboration puts NASA’s Earth science at the fingertips of Smithsonian visitors for the benefit of all.”
With more than two dozen missions in orbit, NASA observes our planet’s oceans, land, ice, and atmosphere, and measure how a change in one drives change in others. NASA develops new ways to build long-term data records of how our planet evolves. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world.
As part of NASA’s ongoing mission to better understand our home planet, NASA created the Earth Information Center which draws insights from across all NASA centers and its federal partners – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Agency for International Development, Environmental Protection Agency, and Federal Emergency Management Administration. It allows viewers to see how our home planet is changing and gives decision makers information to develop the tools they need to mitigate, adapt, and respond to those changes.
NASA’s Earth Information Center is a virtual and physical space designed to aid people to make informed decisions on Earth’s environment and climate. It provides easily accessible Earth information, enabling global understanding of our changing planet.
The expansion of the physical Earth Information Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History makes it the second location in the Washington area. The first is located at NASA Headquarters in Washington at 300 E St., SW.
To learn more about the Earth Information Center, visit:
https://earth.gov
-end-
Meira Bernstein / Elizabeth Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
meira.b.bernstein@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 07, 2024 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4323-4324: Surfin’ Our Way out of the Channel
An image from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, looking back at the western edge of the Gediz Vallis deposit (top left) and the channel wall in the sulfate unit with unconsolidated sand/soil deposits in the foreground. This image was taken by Curiosity’s Left Navigation Camera on Sol 4321 — Martian day 4,321 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 2, 2024, at 02:13:27 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024
As a member of the group tasked with organizing our campaign to investigate the Gediz Vallis channel and deposit (informally known as the Channel Surfers), I was a little sad this morning to see that our drive had successfully taken us out of the channel, back onto the magnesium sulfate-bearing unit, into which the channel is incised. Our long-anticipated investigation of the channel has proven fruitful: Curiosity made the first definitive detection of elemental sulfur on Mars, and we have examined a variety of intriguing lithologies and relationships within the deposit over the last 4.5 months. It has been an exciting time, and I have particularly enjoyed riding this wave with my fellow Channel Surfers — a great team! Now to make sense of all the fantastic data we have collected.
We are not completely done looking at the channel and deposits though. We will be driving parallel to the western margin for a while to facilitate comparisons with what we observed from the east. Tosol we will image two areas of interest within the Gediz Vallis channel from our current vantage point with Mastcam and ChemCam long-distance RMI. But back to the sulfate unit — the team planned a number of activities to document the return to the sulfate unit. These include APXS and MAHLI of the nodular bedrock immediately in front of the rover (“Sub Dome”), ChemCam LIBS and Mastcam of another bedrock block (“Vert Lost Grove”), and Mastcam of the resistant bedrock ridge immediately adjacent to the Gediz Vallis channel (“Muah Mountain”).
Once the drive of about 25 meters (about 82 feet) hopefully executes successfully, Curiosity will look down and image the terrain between her front wheels with MARDI, acquire ChemCam LIBS on an autonomously selected target in the workspace, and then perform a series of atmospheric and environmental observations. These include a Mastcam tau to measure dust in the atmosphere, Navcam dust devil and suprahorizon movies, and a Navcam line-of-sight observation. The plan is rounded out with DAN, RAD, and REMS activities.
Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick
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Last Updated Oct 03, 2024 Related Terms
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The U.S. Space Force celebrates its fifth year of existence securing the nation’s interest in, from and to space.
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4307-4308: Bright Rocks Catch Our Eyes
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image while exploring a rock-strewn channel of Gediz Vallis on the Red Planet. Mission scientists were particularly intrigued to investigate several bright-toned rocks (at the middle-right, bottom-right and bottom-center of the image), similar to rocks that Curiosity had encountered previously that were unexpectedly rich in sulfur. This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera aboard Curiosity on Sol 4306 — Martian day 4,306 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission — on Sept. 16, 2024 at 12:47:18 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Sept. 16, 2024
We made good progress through Gediz Vallis in the weekend drive, landing in a segment of the channel containing a mix of loose rubble and other channel-filling debris. Amongst the jumbled scene, though, particular objects of interest caught our eye: bright rocks. In past workspaces in Gediz Vallis, similar bright rocks have been associated with very high to almost pure sulfur contents. As all good geologists know, however, color is not diagnostic, so we cannot assume these are the same as sulfur-rich rocks we have encountered previously. The only way to know is to collect data, and that was a significant focus of today’s plan.
We planned multiple mosaics across the examples of bright rocks visible in the image above. Mastcam and ChemCam RMI will cover “Bright Dot Lake” and “Sheep Creek” both in the right midfield of the image. Mastcam imaged the example in the bottom right corner of the image at “Marble Falls,” and ChemCam LIBS targeted one of the small bright fragments along the bottom of the image at “Blanc Lake.” There was also a small bit of bright material in the workspace, but unfortunately, it was not reachable by APXS. APXS analyzed a spot near the bright material, at target “Frog Lake,” and MAHLI was able to tack on a few extra images around that target that should capture the bright material. MAHLI also imaged a vuggy target in the workspace at “Grasshopper Flat.” The wider context of the channel was also of interest for imaging, so we captured the full expanse of the channel with one Mastcam mosaic, and focused another on mounds distributed through the channel at target “Copper Creek.”
Even with all this rock imaging, we did not miss a beat with our environmental monitoring. We planned regular RAD, REMS, and DAN measurements, mid and late day atmospheric dust observations, a cloud movie, and dust devil imaging.
Our drive is planned to take us up onto one of the ridges in the channel. Will we find more bright rocks there? Or something new and unexpected that was delivered down Gediz Vallis by some past Martian flood or debris flow? Only the channel knows!
Written by Michelle Minitti, Planetary Geologist at Framework
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Last Updated Sep 17, 2024 Related Terms
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