Curiosity update: Continuing up the Vera Rubin Ridge

Sol 1788, August 17, 2017, update by MSL scientist Christopher Edwards: I was the Surface Properties Scientist, or SPS, on staff today. After completing a successful drive back to the strategic route to continue up the Vera Rubin Ridge, we arrived at a workspace filled with sand and a lone rock outcrop dubbed “Dumplings Island” seen in the center of the included image. This rock outcrop was the focus of most of today’s planned activities, including high resolution microscopic imaging with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to characterize the outcrop’s particle size and small scale textures. In addition Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and ChemCam observations were planned to understand the composition of this rock outcrop, providing another important compositional data point as Curiosity traverses the Vera Rubin Ridge stratigraphy. The rover to passed its Slip Risk… [More at link]