Jump to content
Join the Alien Search, login or register FREE on Aliens and Space Forum
Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site

Stephanie Getty: Exploring the Universe with Curiosity and Wonder

NASA

By NASA
in NASA

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Publishers
NASA Mentor

NASA

Posted
  • Publishers
Posted
A white woman with blonde wavy hair addresses two people in the foreground, backs to the camera.
Dr. Stephanie Getty, director of NASA Goddard’s Solar System Exploration Division, talks about NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission with Dr. Kate Calvin, the agency’s chief scientist.
Credits: Courtesy of Stephanie Getty

Name: Dr. Stephanie Getty

Title: Director of the Solar System Exploration Division, Sciences and Exploration Directorate and Deputy Principal Investigator of the DAVINCI Mission

Formal Job Classification: Planetary scientist

Organization: Solar System Exploration Division, Sciences and Exploration Directorate (Code 690)

A white woman with blonde wavy hair stands behind two halves of a large silver ball, one facing up like a bowl, the other downward on a table.
Dr. Stephanie Getty, director of NASA Goddard’s Solar System Exploration Division, poses with a full-scale engineering unit of NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) descent sphere.
Credits: Courtesy of Stephanie Getty

What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? How do you help support Goddard’s mission?

As the Director of the Solar System Exploration Division, I work from a place of management to support our division’s scientists. As the deputy principal investigator of the DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission, I work with the principal investigator to lead the team in implementing this mission to study the atmosphere of Venus.

I love that I get to work from a place of advocacy in support of my truly excellent, talented colleagues. I get to think strategically to make the most of opportunities and do my best to overcome difficulties for the best possible future for our teams. It’s also a fun challenge that no two days are ever the same!

Why did you become a planetary scientist?

In school, I had a lot of interests and space was always one of them. I also loved reading, writing, math, biology, and chemistry. Being a planetary scientist touches on all of these.

My dad inspired me become a scientist because he loved his telescope and photography including of celestial bodies. We watched Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” often.

I grew up in southeastern Florida, near Fort Lauderdale. I have a B.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Florida.  

How did you come to Goddard?

A white woman with blonde wavy hair takes a selfie in front of a rainbow-colored row of flowers.
“My goal is to provide a supportive environment for our incredibly talented science community in the Division to thrive, to push discovery forward and improve the understanding of our solar system,” said Dr. Stephanie Getty, director of NASA Goddard’s Solar System Exploration Division. “It’s a priority to encourage effective and open communication.”
Credits: Courtesy of Stephanie Getty

I had a post-doctoral fellowship in the physics department at the University of Maryland, and a local connection and a suggestion from my advisor led me to Goddard in 2004.

What is most important to you as director of the Solar System Exploration Division, Sciences and Exploration Directorate?

My goal is to provide a supportive environment for our incredibly talented science community in the Division to thrive, to push discovery forward and improve the understanding of our solar system. It’s a priority to encourage effective and open communication. I really try to value the whole person, recognizing that each of us is three-dimensional, with full personal lives. The people create the culture that allows our scientists to thrive and explore.

What are your goals as deputy principal investigator of the DAVINCI mission?

DAVINCI’s goal is to fill long-standing gaps about Venus, including whether it looked more like Earth in the past. Our energetic team brings together science, engineering, technology, project management, and business acumen to build a multi-element spacecraft that will explore Venus above the clouds, and during an hour-long descent through the atmosphere into the searingly hot and high pressure deep layers of the atmosphere near the surface. We hope to launch in June 2029.

What is your proudest accomplishment at Goddard?

I am pleased and proud to be deputy principal investigator on a major mission proposal that now gets to fly. It is an enormous privilege to be entrusted as part of the leadership team to bring the first probe mission back to Venus in over four decades.

What makes Goddard’s culture effective?

Goddard’s culture is at its best when we collectively appreciate how each member of the organization works towards solving our problems. The scientists appreciate the hard, detailed work that the engineers do to make designs. The engineers and project managers are energized by the fundamental science questions that underlie everything we do. And we have brilliant support staff that keeps our team organized and focused.

A white woman with blonde wavy hair stands in front of a white bridge on a sunny day.
“Curiosity is a defining characteristic of a good scientist, never losing a sense of wonder,” says Dr. Stephanie Getty, director of NASA Goddard’s Solar System Exploration Division. “When I can, I try to make time to pause to reflect on how beautiful and special our own planet is.”
Credits: Courtesy of Stephanie Getty

What goes through your mind when you think about which fundamental science question to address and how?

A lot of the research I have done, including my mission work, has been inspired by the question of how life originates, how life originated on Earth, and whether there are or have been other environments in the solar system that could have ever supported life. These questions are profound to any human being. My job allows me to work with incredibly talented teams to make scientific progress on these questions.

It is really humbling.

Who inspired you?

My 10th grade English teacher encouraged us to connect with the natural world and to write down our experiences. Exploring the manifestations of nature connects with the way I approach my small piece of exploring the solar system. I really love the writing parts of my job, crafting the narrative around the science we do and why it is important.

As a mentor, what is the most important lesson you give?

A successful career should reflect both your passion and natural abilities. Know yourself. What feels rewarding to you is important. Learn how to be honest with yourself and let yourself be driven by curiosity.

Our modern lives can be very noisy at work and at home. It can be hard to filter through what is and is not important. Leaving space to connect with the things that satisfy your curiosity can be one way to make the most of the interconnectivity and complexity of life.

Curiosity not only connects us to the natural world, but also to each other. Curiosity is a defining characteristic of a good scientist, never losing a sense of wonder.

I’m looking out my window as we talk. When I can, I try to make time to pause to reflect on how beautiful and special our own planet is.

What are your hobbies?

I love hiking with my kids. Walking through the woods puts me in the moment and clears my mind better than anything else. It gives my brain a chance to relax. Nature gives perspective, it reminds me that I am part of something bigger. Walking in the woods gives me a chance to pause, for example, to notice an interesting rock formation, or watch a spider spinning an impressive web, or spot a frog trying to camouflage itself in a pond, and doing this with my children is my favorite pastime. 

Where is your favorite place in the world?

Any campsite at dusk with a fire going and eating s’mores with my family.

A graphic with a collection of people's portraits grouped together in front of a soft blue galaxy background. The people come from various races, ethnicities, and genders. A soft yellow star shines in the upper left corner, and the stylized text u0022Conversations with Goddardu0022 is in white on the far right.

Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.

By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Share

Details

Last Updated
Feb 10, 2025

Related Terms

Explore More

together_selfie.jpg?w=300
5 min read

World Photo Day: Behind the Scenes with Goddard’s Documentary Photographers

Article 18 mins ago
gsfc_20180404_2018-13106_001.jpg?w=232
6 min read

Jesse Walsh: Possibility at the Cutting Edge of Flight

Article 18 mins ago
in_lab_with_cdmf1.jpg?w=169
6 min read

Margaret Dominguez Helps NASA Space Telescopes Open Their ‘Eyes’ to the Universe

Article 18 mins ago

View the full article

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Similar Topics

    • NASA
      NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Starts Unpacking Boxwork Formations
      By NASA
      5 min read
      Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
      Drag your mouse or move your phone to pan around within this 360-degree view to explore the boxwork patterns on Mars that NASA’s Curiosity is investigating for the first time. The rover captured the 291 images that make up this mosaic between May 15 and May 18.
      Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS The rover recently drilled a sample from a new region with features that could reveal whether Mars’ subsurface once provided an environment suitable for life.
      New images from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover show the first close-up views of a region scientists had previously observed only from orbit. The images and data being collected are already raising new questions about how the Martian surface was changing billions of years ago. The Red Planet once had rivers, lakes, and possibly an ocean. Although scientists aren’t sure why, its water eventually dried up and the planet transformed into the chilly desert it is today.
      By the time Curiosity’s current location formed, the long-lived lakes were gone in Gale Crater, the rover’s landing area, but water was still percolating under the surface­. The rover found dramatic evidence of that groundwater when it encountered crisscrossing low ridges, some just a few inches tall, arranged in what geologists call a boxwork pattern. The bedrock below these ridges likely formed when groundwater trickling through the rock left behind minerals that accumulated in those cracks and fissures, hardening and becoming cementlike. Eons of sandblasting by Martian wind wore away the rock but not the minerals, revealing networks of resistant ridges within.
      NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this scene while looking out across a region filled with boxwork patterns, low ridges that scientists think could have been formed by groundwater billions of years ago.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS The ridges Curiosity has seen so far look a bit like a crumbling curb. The boxwork patterns stretch across miles of a layer on Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain whose foothills the rover has been climbing since 2014. Intriguingly, boxwork patterns haven’t been spotted anywhere else on the mountain, either by Curiosity or orbiters passing overhead.
      “A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “As we drive on, we’ll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target.”
      Important to the boxwork patterns’ history is the part of the mountain where they’re found. Mount Sharp consists of multiple layers, each of which formed during different eras of ancient Martian climate. Curiosity essentially “time travels” as it ascends from the oldest to youngest layers, searching for signs of water and environments that could have supported ancient microbial life.
      The rover is currently exploring a layer with an abundance of salty minerals called magnesium sulfates, which form as water dries up. Their presence here suggests this layer emerged as the climate became drier. Remarkably, the boxwork patterns show that even in the midst of this drying, water was still present underground, creating changes seen today.
      NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover viewed this low ridge, which looks a bit like a crumbling curb, on May 16. Scientists think the hardened edges of such ridges — part of the boxwork region the rover is exploring — may have been formed by ancient groundwater.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Scientists hope to gain more insight into why the boxwork patterns formed here, and Mars recently provided some unexpected clues. The bedrock between the boxwork ridges has a different composition than other layers of Mount Sharp. It also has lots of tiny fractures filled with white veins of calcium sulfate, another salty mineral left behind as groundwater trickles through rock cracks. Similar veins were plentiful on lower layers of the mountain, including one enriched with clays, but had not been spotted in the sulfate layer until now.
      “That’s really surprising,” said Curiosity’s deputy project scientist, Abigail Fraeman of JPL. “These calcium sulfate veins used to be everywhere, but they more or less disappeared as we climbed higher up Mount Sharp. The team is excited to figure out why they’ve returned now.”
      New Terrain, New Findings
      On June 8, Curiosity set out to learn about the unique composition of the bedrock in this area, using the drill on the end of its robotic arm to snag a sample of a rock nicknamed “Altadena.” The rover then dropped the pulverized sample into instruments within its body for more detailed analysis.
      Drilling additional samples from more distant boxwork patterns, where the mineral ridges are much larger, will help the mission make sense of what they find. The team will also search for organic molecules and other evidence of an ancient habitable environment preserved in the cemented ridges.
      As Curiosity continues to explore, it will be leaving a new assortment of nicknames behind, as well. To keep track of features on the planet, the mission applies nicknames to each spot the rover studies, from hills it views with its cameras to specific calcium sulfate veins it zaps with its laser. (Official names, such as Aeolis Mons — otherwise known as Mount Sharp — are approved by the International Astronomical Union.)
      The previous names were selected from local sites in Southern California, where JPL is based. The Altadena sample, for instance, bears the name of a community near JPL that was severely burned during January’s Eaton Canyon fire. Now on a new part of their Martian map, the team is selecting names from around Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, Earth’s largest salt flat. This exceptionally dry terrain crosses into Chile’s Atacama Desert, and astrobiologists study both the salt flat and the surrounding desert because of their similarity to Mars’ extreme dryness.
      More About Curiosity
      Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
      For more about Curiosity, visit:
      science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
      News Media Contacts
      Andrew Good
      Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
      818-393-2433
      andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
      Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
      NASA Headquarters, Washington
      202-358-1600
      karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
      2025-080
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Jun 23, 2025 Related Terms
      Curiosity (Rover) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Explore More
      4 min read NASA Mars Orbiter Captures Volcano Peeking Above Morning Cloud Tops
      Article 2 weeks ago 6 min read NASA’s Ready-to-Use Dataset Details Land Motion Across North America
      Article 2 weeks ago 5 min read 3 Black Holes Caught Eating Massive Stars in NASA Data
      Black holes are invisible to us unless they interact with something else. Some continuously eat…
      Article 3 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
      Missions
      Humans in Space
      Climate Change
      Solar System
      View the full article
    • NASA
      Curiosity Blog, Sols 4577-4579: Watch the Skies
      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 4 min read
      Curiosity Blog, Sols 4577-4579: Watch the Skies
      NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image inside a trough in the boxwork terrain on Mars, using its Right Navigation Camera. Curiosity captured the image on June 20, 2025 — Sol 4575, or Martian day 4,575 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 00:30:12 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Deborah Padgett, OPGS Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
      Earth planning date: Friday, June 20, 2025
      During the plan covering Sols 4575-4576, Curiosity continued our investigation of mysterious boxwork structures on the shoulders of Mount Sharp. After a successful 56-meter drive (about 184 feet), Curiosity is now parked in a trough cutting through a highly fractured region covered by linear features thought to be evidence of groundwater flow in the distant past of Mars. With all six wheels firmly planted on solid ground, our rover is ready for contact science! Unfortunately, a repeat of the frost-detection experiment expected for the weekend plan is postponed for a few days due to a well-understood ChemCam issue. In the meantime, our atmospheric investigations have a chance to shine, as they received additional time to observe the Martian sky.
      In the early afternoon of Sol 4577, Curiosity’s navigation cameras will take a movie of the upper reaches of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp), hoping to see moving cloud shadows. This observation enables the team to calculate the altitude of clouds drifting over the peak. Next, Navcam will point straight up, to image cloud motion at the zenith and determine wind direction at their altitude. Mastcam will then do a series of small mosaics to study the rover workspace and features of the trough that Curiosity has entered. First is a 6×4 stereo mosaic of the workspace and the contact science targets “Copacabana” and “Copiapo.” The first target is a representative sample of the trough bedrock, and its name celebrates a town in Bolivia located on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The second target is a section of lighter-toned material, which may be associated with stripes or “veins” filling the many crosscutting fractures in the local stones. These are the deposits potentially left by groundwater intrusion long ago. The name “Copiapo” honors a silver mining city in the extremely dry Atacama desert of northern Chile. A second 6×3 Mastcam stereo mosaic will look at active cracks in the trough. Two additional 5×1 Mastcam stereo mosaics target “Ardamarca,” a ridge parallel to the trough walls, and a cliff exposing layers of rock at the base of “Mishe Mokwa” butte. At our current location, all the Curiosity target names are taken from the Uyuni geologic quadrangle named after the otherworldly lake bed and ephemeral lake high on the Bolivian altiplano, but the Mishe Mokwa butte is back in the Altadena quad, named for a popular hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. After this lengthy science block, Curiosity will deploy its arm, brush the dust from Copacabana with the DRT, then image both it and Copiapo with the MAHLI microscopic imager. Overnight, APXS will determine the composition of these two targets. 
      Early in the morning of Sol 4578, Mastcam will take large 27×5 and 18×3 stereo mosaics of different parts of the trough, using morning light to highlight the terrain shadows. Later in the day, Navcam will do a 360 sky survey, determining phase function across the entire sky. A 25-meter drive (about 82 feet) will follow, and the post-drive imaging includes both a 360-degree Navcam panorama of our new location and an image of the ground under the rover with MARDI in the evening twilight. The next sol is all atmospheric science, with an extensive set of afternoon suprahorizon movies and a dust-devil survey for Navcam, as well as a Mastcam dust opacity observation. The final set of observations in this plan happens on the morning of Sol 4580 with more Navcam suprahorizon and zenith movies to observe clouds, a Navcam dust opacity measurement across Gale Crater, and a last Mastcam tau. On Monday, we expect to plan another drive and hope to return to the frost-detection experiment soon as we explore the boxwork canyons of Mars.

      For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates


      Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments

      Share








      Details
      Last Updated Jun 20, 2025 Related Terms
      Blogs Explore More
      2 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4575-4576: Perfect Parking Spot


      Article


      5 hours ago
      3 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4573-4574: Welcome to the Uyuni Quad


      Article


      2 days ago
      3 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4570-4572: A Fond Farewell, With a Side of Frost


      Article


      6 days ago
      Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Mars


      Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…


      All Mars Resources


      Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…


      Rover Basics


      Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…


      Mars Exploration: Science Goals


      The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

      View the full article
    • NASA
      Curiosity Blog, Sols 4575-4576: Perfect Parking Spot
      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 4575-4576: Perfect Parking Spot
      NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of interesting textures exposed in an outcrop at the base of the “Mishe Mokwa” butte, ahead of the rover, using its Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro Imager (RMI). Curiosity captured the image on June 13, 2025 — Sol 4569, or Martian day 4,569 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 17:53:55 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL Written by Lucy Thompson, APXS Collaborator and Senior Research Scientist at the University of New Brunswick
      Earth planning date: Wednesday, June 18,  2025
      Not only did our drive execute perfectly, Curiosity ended up in one of the safest, most stable parking spots of the whole mission. We often come into the start of planning hoping that all the wheels are safely on the ground, but the terrain on Mars is not always very cooperative. As the APXS strategic planner I was really hoping that the rover was stable enough to unstow the arm and place APXS on a rock — which it was! We are acquiring APXS and ChemCam compositional analyses and accompanying Mastcam and MAHLI imaging of a brushed, flat, typical bedrock target, “Tarija.” This allows us to track the chemistry of the bedrock that hosts the potential boxwork features that we are driving towards. 
      As well as composition, we continue to image the terrain around us to better understand the local and regional context. Mastcam will acquire mosaics of some linear ridges off to the north of our current location, as well as of a potential fracture fill just out in front of our current parking spot, “Laguna del Bayo.” ChemCam will image part of an interesting outcrop (“Mishe Mokwa”) that we have already observed (see the image associated with this blog).
      Thanks to the relatively benign terrain, the engineers have planned a 54-meter drive (about 177 feet) to our next location. After that drive (hopefully) executes successfully, we have a series of untargeted science observations. MARDI will image the terrain beneath the wheels and ChemCam will pick a rock target autonomously from our new workspace and analyze its chemistry. 
      To track atmospheric and environmental fluctuations, we are acquiring a Mastcam tau to measure dust in the sky as well as a Navcam large dust-devil survey and suprahorizon movie. The plan is rounded, as always, with standard DAN, REMS, and RAD activities.

      For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates


      Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments

      Share








      Details
      Last Updated Jun 20, 2025 Related Terms
      Blogs Explore More
      3 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4573-4574: Welcome to the Uyuni Quad


      Article


      2 days ago
      3 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4570-4572: A Fond Farewell, With a Side of Frost


      Article


      6 days ago
      2 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4568-4569: A Close Look at the Altadena Drill Hole and Tailings


      Article


      7 days ago
      Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Mars


      Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…


      All Mars Resources


      Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…


      Rover Basics


      Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…


      Mars Exploration: Science Goals


      The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

      View the full article
    • NASA
      Curiosity Blog, Sols 4573-4574: Welcome to the Uyuni Quad
      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 4573-4574: Welcome to the Uyuni Quad
      NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image, looking southwest toward the distant large boxwork structures in the Uyuni quad, using its Left Navigation Camera on June 15, 2025 — Sol 4571, or Martian day 4,571 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 21:27:38 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Lauren Edgar, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
      Earth planning date: Monday, June 16, 2025
      Over the weekend Curiosity successfully wrapped up activities at the “Altadena” drill site and got back on the road. The approximately 48-meter drive (about 157 feet) was successful, and placed the rover in the next mapping quadrangle (informally referred to as a quad). 
      As a reminder, the rover’s exploration area has been divided into 1.5 kilometer by 1.5 kilometer square quads, and each quad is named after a town of less than 100,000 people. As Curiosity explores features within a quad, we assign informal target names that correspond to geologic formations and features from that town on Earth.
      Uyuni, Bolivia, is the gateway city near the world’s largest salt flats (salars), and it seems like an appropriate name as Curiosity explores drier depositional environments higher in the Mount Sharp stratigraphy. The team is excited to use some new target names that will draw from Uyuni and surrounding areas, including the Atacama Desert in Chile, which hosts many Mars analog sites including eolian features, studies of life in extreme environments, and some of the world’s great observatories. A fitting theme for this next phase of exploration!
      As for today’s two-sol plan, we have a good balance of contact science, remote sensing, and another long drive. The team planned APXS and MAHLI on a nodular bedrock target named “Flamingo” to assess its chemistry and texture. In the targeted remote sensing block, the science team planned a Mastcam mosaic of “Los Patos” to characterize a depression which may be related to a small impact crater or boxwork structures, along with a Mastcam image of “La Lava” to investigate an interesting dark block. There are also several Mastcam mosaics of nearby troughs to assess active surface processes, and documentation images for ChemCam observations. The plan includes a ChemCam LIBS observation on a target named “Tacos” to assess the local bedrock, and a long-distance RMI mosaic to evaluate sedimentary structures at “Mishe Mokwa” butte. Then the rover will drive about 56 meters (about 184 feet) to the southwest, and take post-drive imaging to prepare for the next plan. On the second sol, Curiosity will complete a ChemCam calibration target activity, a Mastcam data management activity, and a few Navcam activities to monitor clouds and dust in the atmosphere.
      We’re looking forward to exploring more of Uyuni as we work our way toward the larger exposure of boxwork structures that lie ahead, and the clues they hold to ancient Mars conditions.

      For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates


      Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments

      Share








      Details
      Last Updated Jun 18, 2025 Related Terms
      Blogs Explore More
      3 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4570-4572: A Fond Farewell, With a Side of Frost


      Article


      4 days ago
      2 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4568-4569: A Close Look at the Altadena Drill Hole and Tailings


      Article


      5 days ago
      2 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4566-4567: Drilling Success


      Article


      7 days ago
      Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Mars


      Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…


      All Mars Resources


      Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…


      Rover Basics


      Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…


      Mars Exploration: Science Goals


      The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

      View the full article
    • NASA
      Curiosity Blog, Sols 4568-4569: A Close Look at the Altadena Drill Hole and Tailings
      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 4568-4569: A Close Look at the Altadena Drill Hole and Tailings
      NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of the “Altadena” drill hole using its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on June 8, 2025 — Sol 4564, or Martian day 4,564 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 13:57:45 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
      Earth planning date: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
      As we near the end of our Altadena drill campaign, Curiosity continued her exploration of the Martian bedrock within the boxwork structures on Mount Sharp. After successfully delivering a powdered rock sample to both the CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) and SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instruments, the focus for sols 4568 and 4569 was to take a closer look at the drill hole itself — specifically, the interior walls of the drill hole and the associated tailings (the rock material pushed out by the drill).
      In the image above, you can see that the tone (or color) of the rock exposed within the wall of the drill hole appears to change slightly with depth, and the drill tailings are a mixture of fine powder and more solid clumps. If you compare the Altadena drill site with the 42 drill sites that came before, one can really appreciate the impressive range of colors, textures, and grain sizes in the rocks that Curiosity has analyzed over the past 12 years. Every drill hole marks a window into the past and can help us understand how the ancient environment and climate on Mars evolved over time.
       In this two-sol plan, the ChemCam, Mastcam, APXS, and MAHLI instruments coordinated their observations to image and characterize the chemistry of the wall of the drill hole and tailings before we drive away from this site over the coming weekend. Outside of our immediate workspace, Mastcam created two stereo mosaics that will image the boxwork structures nearby as well as the layers within Texoli butte. ChemCam assembled three long-distance RMI images that will help assess the layers at the base of the “Mishe Mokwa” hill, complete the imaging of the nearby boxwork structures, and image the very distant crater rim (about 90 kilometers, or 56 miles away) and sky to investigate the scattering properties of the atmosphere. The environmental theme group included observations that will measure the properties of the atmosphere and also included a dust-devil survey.
      Share








      Details
      Last Updated Jun 13, 2025 Related Terms
      Blogs Explore More
      2 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4566-4567: Drilling Success


      Article


      2 days ago
      4 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4563-4565: Doing What We Do Best


      Article


      5 days ago
      4 min read Sols 4561-4562: Prepping to Drill at Altadena


      Article


      1 week ago
      Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Mars


      Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited…


      All Mars Resources


      Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,…


      Rover Basics


      Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a…


      Mars Exploration: Science Goals


      The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…

      View the full article

  • Check out these Videos

×
×
  • Create New...