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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 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 4593-4594: Three Layers and a Lot of Structure at Volcán Peña Blanca
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity used its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to acquire this image showing a part of Volcán Peña Blanca from about 10 meters away (about 33 feet). It is already possible to see the different layers and make out that some of them are parallel, while others are at an angle. Curiosity acquired this image on July 6, 2025 — Sol 4591, or Martian day 4,591 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 10:13:13 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Written by Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK
Earth planning date: Monday, July 7, 2025
A few planning sols ago, we spotted a small ridge in the landscape ahead of us. Ridges and structures that are prominently raised above the landscape are our main target along this part of Curiosity’s traverse. There are many hypotheses on how they formed, and water is one of the likely culprits involved. That is because water reacts with the original minerals, moves the compounds around and some precipitate as minerals in the pore spaces, which is called “cement” by sedimentologists, and generally known as one mechanism to make a rock harder. It’s not the only one, so the Curiosity science team is after all the details at this time to assess whether water indeed was responsible for the more resistant nature of the ridges. Spotting one that is so clearly raised prominently above the landscape — and in easy reach of the rover, both from the distance but also from the path that leads up to it — was therefore very exciting. In addition, the fact that we get a side view of the structure as well as a top view adds to the team’s ability to read the geologic record of this area. “Outcrops,” as we call those places, are one of the most important tools for any field geologist, including Curiosity and team!
Therefore, the penultimate drive stopped about 10 meters away (about 33 feet) from the structure to get a good assessment of where exactly to direct the rover (see the blog post by my colleague Abby). You can see an example of the images Curiosity took with its Mast Camera above; if you want to see them all, they are on the raw images page (and by the time you go, there may be even more images that we took in today’s plan.
With all the information from the last parking spot, the rover drivers parked Curiosity in perfect operating distance for all instruments. In direct view of the rover was a part of Volcán Peña Blanca that shows several units; this blogger counts at least three — but I am a mineralogist, not a sedimentologist! I am really looking forward to the chemical data we will get in this plan. My sedimentologist colleagues found the different angles of smaller layers in the three bigger layers especially interesting, and will look at the high-resolution images from the MAHLI instrument very closely.
With all that in front of us, Curiosity has a very full plan. APXS will get two measurements, the target “Parinacota” is on the upper part of the outcrop and we can even clean it from the dust with the brush, aka DRT. MAHLI will get close-up images to see finer structures and maybe even individual grains. The second APXS target, called “Wila Willki,” is located in the middle part of the outcrop and will also be documented by MAHLI. The third activity of MAHLI will be a so-called dog’s-eye view of the outcrop. For this, the arm reaches very low down to align MAHLI to directly face the outcrop, to get a view of the structures and even a peek underneath some of the protruding ledges. The team is excitedly anticipating the arrival of those images. Stay tuned; you can also find them in the raw images section as soon as we have them!
ChemCam is joining in with two LIBS targets — the target “Pichu Pichu” is on the upper part of the outcrop, and the target “Tacume” is on the middle part. After this much of close up looks, ChemCam is pointing the RMI to the mid-field to look at another of the raised features in more detail and into the far distance to see the upper contact of the boxwork unit with the next unit above it. Mastcam will first join the close up looks and take a large mosaic to document all the details of Volcán Peña Blanca, and to document the LIBS targets, before looking into the distance at two places where we see small troughs around exposed bedrock.
Of course, there are also atmospheric observations in the plan; it’s aphelion cloud season and dust is always of interest. The latter is regularly monitored by atmosphere opacity experiments, and we keep searching for dust devils to understand where, how and why they form and how they move. Curiosity will be busy, and we are very much looking forward to understanding this interesting feature, which is one piece of the puzzle to understand this area we call the boxwork area.
For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates
Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments
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Last Updated Jul 10, 2025 Related Terms
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Last Updated Jul 10, 2025 Related Terms
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NASA to Launch Three Rockets from Alaska in Single Aurora Experiment
Three NASA-funded rockets are set to launch from Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, in an experiment that seeks to reveal how auroral substorms affect the behavior and composition of Earth’s far upper atmosphere.
The experiment’s outcome could upend a long-held theory about the aurora’s interaction with the thermosphere. It may also improve space weather forecasting, critical as the world becomes increasingly reliant on satellite-based devices such as GPS units in everyday life.
Colorful ribbons of aurora sway with geomagnetic activity above the launch pads of Poker Flat Research Range. NASA/Rachel Lense The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Geophysical Institute owns Poker Flat, located 20 miles north of Fairbanks, and operates it under a contract with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, which is part of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The experiment, titled Auroral Waves Excited by Substorm Onset Magnetic Events, or AWESOME, features one four-stage rocket and two two-stage rockets all launching in an approximately three-hour period.
Colorful vapor tracers from the largest of the three rockets should be visible across much of northern Alaska. The launch window is March 24 through April 6.
The mission, led by Mark Conde, a space physics professor at UAF, involves about a dozen UAF graduate student researchers at several ground monitoring sites in Alaska at Utqiagvik, Kaktovik, Toolik Lake, Eagle, and Venetie, as well as Poker Flat. NASA delivers, assembles, tests, and launches the rockets.
“Our experiment asks the question, when the aurora goes berserk and dumps a bunch of heat in the atmosphere, how much of that heat is spent transporting the air upward in a continuous convective plume and how much of that heat results in not only vertical but also horizontal oscillations in the atmosphere?” Conde said.
Confirming which process is dominant will reveal the breadth of the mixing and the related changes in the thin air’s characteristics.
“Change in composition of the atmosphere has consequences,” Conde said. “And we need to know the extent of those consequences.”
Most of the thermosphere, which reaches from about 50 to 350 miles above the surface, is what scientists call “convectively stable.” That means minimal vertical motion of air, because the warmer air is already at the top, due to absorption of solar radiation.
A technician with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility sounding rocket office works on one of the payload sections of the rocket that will launch for the AWESOME campaign. NASA/Lee Wingfield When auroral substorms inject energy and momentum into the middle and lower thermosphere (roughly 60 to 125 miles up), it upsets that stability. That leads to one prevailing theory — that the substorms’ heat is what causes the vertical-motion churn of the thermosphere.
Conde believes instead that acoustic-buoyancy waves are the dominant mixing force and that vertical convection has a much lesser role. Because acoustic-buoyancy waves travel vertically and horizontally from where the aurora hits, the aurora-caused atmospheric changes could be occurring over a much broader area than currently believed.
Better prediction of impacts from those changes is the AWESOME mission’s practical goal.
“I believe our experiment will lead to a simpler and more accurate method of space weather prediction,” Conde said.
Two two-stage, 42-foot Terrier-Improved Malemute rockets are planned to respectively launch about 15 minutes and an hour after an auroral substorm begins. A four-stage, 70-foot Black Brant XII rocket is planned to launch about five minutes after the second rocket.
The first two rockets will release tracers at altitudes of 50 and 110 miles to detect wind movement and wave oscillations. The third rocket will release tracers at five altitudes from 68 to 155 miles.
Pink, blue, and white vapor traces should be visible from the third rocket for 10 to 20 minutes. Launches must occur in the dawn hours, with sunlight hitting the upper altitudes to activate the vapor tracers from the first rocket but darkness at the surface so ground cameras can photograph the tracers’ response to air movement.
By Rod Boyce
University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute
NASA Media Contact: Sarah Frazier
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Last Updated Mar 21, 2025 Related Terms
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NASA / Lillian Gipson NASA has selected three university teams to help solve 21st century aviation challenges that could transform the skies above our communities.
As part of NASA’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI), both graduate and undergraduate students on faculty-led university teams will contribute directly to real-world flight research while gaining hands-on experience working with partners from other universities and industry.
By combining faculty expertise, student innovation, and industry experience, these three teams will advance NASA’s vision for the future of 21st century aviation.
koushik datta
NASA Project Manager
This is NASA’s eighth round of annual ULI awards. Research topics include:
New aviation systems for safer, more efficient flight operations Improved communications frequency usage for more effective and reliable information transfer Autonomous flight capabilities that could advance research in areas such as NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission “By combining faculty expertise, student innovation, and industry experience, these three teams will advance NASA’s vision for the future of 21st century aviation,” said Koushik Datta, NASA University Innovation project manager at the Agency’s Ames Research Center in California.
This eighth round of annual ULI selections would lead to awards totaling up to $20.7 million for the three teams during the next three years. For each team, the proposing university will serve as lead. The new ULI selections are:
Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida
The team will create a framework for developing trustworthy increasingly autonomous aviation safety systems, such as those that could potentially employ artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Team members include: The Pennsylvania State University in University Park; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro; University of Florida in Gainesville; Stanford University in California; Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico; and the companies Collins Aerospace of Charlotte in North Carolina; and ResilienX of Syracuse, New York.
University of Colorado Boulder
This team will investigate tools for understanding and leveraging the complex communications environment of collaborative, autonomous airspace systems.
Team members include: Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge; The University of Texas at El Paso; University of Colorado in Colorado Springs; Stanford University in California; University of Minnesota Twin Cities in Minneapolis, North Carolina State University in Raleigh; University of California inSanta Barbara; El Paso Community College in Texas; Durham Technical Community College in North Carolina; the Center for Autonomous Air Mobility and Sensing research partnership; the company Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Company, in Manassas, Virginia; and the nonprofit Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Florida
This team will research continuously updating, self-diagnostic vehicle health management to enhance the safety and reliability of Advanced Air Mobility vehicles.
Team members include: Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; The University of Texas at Arlington; University of Southern California in Los Angeles; the company Collins Aerospace of Charlotte, North Carolina; and the Argonne National Laboratory.
NASA’s ULI is managed by the agency’s University Innovation project, which also includes the University Student Research Challenge and the Gateways to Blue Skies competition.
Watch the NASA Aeronautics solicitations page for the announcement of when the next opportunity will be to submit a proposal for consideration during the next round of ULI selections.
About the Author
John Gould
Aeronautics Research Mission DirectorateJohn Gould is a member of NASA Aeronautics' Strategic Communications team at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He is dedicated to public service and NASA’s leading role in scientific exploration. Prior to working for NASA Aeronautics, he was a spaceflight historian and writer, having a lifelong passion for space and aviation.
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Last Updated Mar 10, 2025 EditorJim BankeContactSteven Holzsteven.m.holz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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