Curiosity update: Castle in the sand

Sol 1993-94, March 15, 2018, update by MSL scientist Michelle Minitti: As we drive east across the top of “Vera Rubin Ridge” – backwards no less! – we encountered another nice patch of bedrock in Curiosity’s workspace today, motivating multiple observations before we hit the road once again. The bedrock in front of us resembled that which we studied on Sol 1991, where we imaged the target “Seaforth Head”. Seaforth Head exhibits small crystals like the ones we found at the “Jura” outcrop, and we hoped that today’s workspace might turn up more crystals. To look for them, we planned a Mastcam M100 mosaic over a wide swath of the workspace. Our more detailed assessment of the bedrock will include coordinated observations of the gray bedrock target “Stirling Castle” with MAHLI, APXS and ChemCam. This target’s name also gave us a chance to honor one of the rover planners operating the rover today, Stirling Algermissen! ChemCam will acquire a second raster on “Dunottar,” bedrock which is rough and reddish at its base and smooth and gray… [More at link]