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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 Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4595-4596: Just Another Beautiful Day on Mars
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on July 9, 2025 — Sol 4594, or Martian day 4,594 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 11:03:48 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Wednesday, July 9, 2025
In today’s plan, we have a little bit of everything. With it being winter still, we are taking advantage of the ability to let the rover sleep in, doing most of the activities in the afternoon when it is warmer and we need less heating. As the Systems Engineer (Engineering Uplink Lead) today, I sequenced the needed heating and some other engineering housekeeping activities.
We start off with an extensive remote science block with Mastcam imaging of a nearby trough to look for potential sand activity. There is color imaging of a displaced block, “Ouro,” near a circular depression — could this be a small crater? Mastcam also takes a look at a ridge “Volcán Peña Blanca” to look at the sedimentary structures, which may provide insights into its formation. ChemCam LIBS and Mastcam team up to look at the “Los Andes” target, which is the dark face of a nearby piece of exposed bedrock. ChemCam RMI and Mastcam check out a distant small outcrop to examine the geometry of the layers. We also throw in environmental observations, a Mastcam solar Tau and a Navcam line-of-site looking at dust in the atmosphere. After a nap, Curiosity will be doing some contact science activities on “Cataratas del Jardín” and “Rio Ivirizu” bedrock targets. Looking at two nearby targets for variability can help us understand the local geology. Cataratas del Jardín gets a brushing to clear away the dust before both targets are examined by MAHLI and APXS. Fortunately for the Arm Rover Planner, both of these targets are fairly flat and easy to reach. Before going to sleep for the night, Curiosity will stow the arm to be ready for driving on the next sol.On the second sol, there is more remote science. ChemCam LIBS and Mastcam will examine “Torotoro,” another piece of layered bedrock. ChemCam RMI will take a mosaic of “Paniri,” which is an interesting incision in the rock that is filled with another material. There are also environmental observations, a Navcam dust devil survey and a suprahorizon movie. After another nap, Curiosity is getting on the road. We’re heading southwest (direction shown in the image) about 50 meters (about 164 feet), but we need to sneak between sandy pits and skirt around some terrain that we can’t see behind. The terrain here provides pretty nice driving, though, without a lot of big boulders, steep slopes, or pointy rocks that can poke holes in our wheels. After the standard post-drive imaging for our next plan, there are some Navcam observations to look for clouds and our normal look under the rover with MARDI before Curiosity goes to sleep for the night.
For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates
Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments
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Last Updated Jul 15, 2025 Related Terms
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By USH
An Alberta couple captured something extraordinary on camera during the evening of July 2, 2025. Just after a powerful lightning strike near their home in Rich Valley, Alberta, they saw what they described as a ball of fire hovering roughly 20 feet above the ground.
“It just appeared out of nowhere,” one of them recalled. “A big, glowing sphere hanging in the air — and then, just like that, it vanished.”
The main stream media are trying to blame this on the weather speculating the glowing orb could be ball lightning, an elusive and still-unexplained weather phenomenon reported for centuries. Often described as floating spheres of light, ball lightning has defied scientific consensus.
But could it be more than just an atmospheric anomaly?
A similar sighting occurred in 2016 in Russia’s Novosibirsk Region, where a massive, luminous sphere was seen drifting silently across a field before vanishing into nearby woods. That object, see image below, too, appeared after intense lightning activity and left experts just as baffled.
Is this truly a rare natural phenomenon? Or are we witnessing something beyond the scope of conventional science, a window into technology or intelligence we don’t yet understand?
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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 Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 2 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4584 – 4585: Just a Small Bump
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on June 27, 2025 — Sol 4582, or Martian day 4,582 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 05:28:57 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, June 27, 2025
We weren’t able to unstow Curiosity’s robotic arm on Wednesday because of some potentially unstable rocks under Curiosity’s wheels, but we liked the rocks at Wednesday’s location enough that we decided to spend a sol repositioning the rover so that we’d have another chance today to analyze them. The small adjustment of the rover’s position, or “bump,” as we like to call it during tactical planning, was successful, and we found ourselves in a nice stable pose this morning which allowed us to use our highly capable robotic arm to observe the rocks in front of us.
We will be collecting APXS and MAHLI observations of two targets today. The first, “Santa Elena,” is the bumpy rock that caught our eye on Wednesday. The second, informally named “Estancia Allkamari,” is a patch of nearby sand. We’ll analyze this target to understand if and how the sand composition has changed as we’ve driven across Mount Sharp, and to better help us understand how sand may be contributing to future compositional measurements that cover mixtures of sand and rock. MAHLI and ChemCam will team up to observe a third target named “Ticatica,” which is another bumpy rock nearby that looks like it might have a dark patch on its side.
This is the final weekend of this Martian year when temperature and relative humidity in Gale crater hit the sweet spot where conditions are right for frost to form in the pre-dawn hours. We’re taking this last opportunity to see if we can catch any evidence of frost with the ChemCam laser, shooting a sandy (and hopefully cold) portion of the ground in the pre-dawn hours on a target named “Rio Huasco.” Other activities in the plan include atmospheric monitoring, Mastcam mosaics, including a 20 x 3 mosaic of the large boxwork structures in the distance, and a short drive to the southwest to check out a rocky raised ridge.
For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates
Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments
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Last Updated Jul 01, 2025 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 Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Sols 4541–4542: Boxwork Structure, or Just “Box-Like” Structure?
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on May 14, 2025 — Sol 4539, or Martian day 4,539 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 00:57:26 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Today we came into another strange and interesting workspace (see image above) that is as exciting as the one we had on Monday. This is our first arrival at a potential boxwork structure — a series of web-like, resistant ridges visible in orbital images that we have been looking forward to visiting since we first saw them. Today’s observations will be the first step to figure out if these ridges (at least the one in front of us) is part of a boxwork structure. Unfortunately, we can’t quite reach their targets safely today because one of the rover’s front wheels is perched on a small pebble and might slip off if we move the arm. Instead, we will take a lot of remote sensing observations and reposition the rover slightly so that we can try again on Friday.
But before repositioning, Curiosity will start off by taking a huge Mastcam mosaic of all terrain around the rover to help us document how it is changing along our path and with elevation. Mastcam then will look at “Temblor Range,” which is a nearby low and resistant ridge that also has some rover tracks from where we previously crossed it. Mastcam is also imaging a trough that is similar to the other troughs we have been seeing locally and that have multiple possible origins. Then, Mastcam will image the AEGIS target from the prior plan. ChemCam is taking a LIBS observation of “Glendale Peak,” a rugged top portion of the ridge defining the potential boxwork structure, which is to the right of the workspace, and an RMI mosaic of Texoli butte. Mastcam follows up the ChemCam observation of Glendale Peak by imaging it.
In parallel with all the imaging is our monthly test and maintenance of our backup pump for the Heat Rejection System (the HRS) The HRS is a fluid loop that distributes the heat from the rover’s power source to help keep all the subsystems within reasonable temperatures. We need to periodically make sure it stays in good working order just in case our primary pump has issues.
After all the imaging, the rover will bump 30 centimeters backwards (about 12 inches) to come down off the pebble and put the interesting science targets in the arm workspace. This should leave us in a position where it is safe to unstow the arm and put instruments down on the surface.
On the second, untargeted sol of the plan, we have some additional atmospheric science including a large dust-devil survey, as well as a Navcam suprahorizon movie and a Mastcam solar tau to measure the dust in the atmosphere. We finish up with another autonomous targeting of ChemCam with AEGIS.
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Last Updated May 19, 2025 Related Terms
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