Sol 1732, June 20, 2017. Four Navcam shots detail the skyline of Vera Rubin Ridge. Before taking these images, Curiosity drove more than 13 meters (43 feet) to the east-southeast. Rover drivers are threading a course between sand ripple patches as they head for a path up onto the ridge. (Click image to enlarge it.)
Sol 1732 raw images (from all cameras), and Curiosity’s latest location.
Local-scale dust-raising activity continued this past week with sporadic storms over the mid-to-high latitudes of both northern and southern hemispheres. Towards the beginning of the week, dust storms were spotted pushing southward over the plains of Acidalia and Utopia. Looking further north, the seasonal ice cap edge had retreated to ~61°N latitude. In the tropics, the plateaus of Syria and Solis experienced a transient dust storm or two in the first half of the week. Diffuse water-ice clouds persisted over the slopes of Olympus, Elysium, and the Tharsis Montes… [More at link, including video]
Sol 4766, June 21, 2017. Opportunity is rolling again, this time with a drive of 4.7 meters (15 feet) to the west-northwest. The multi-frame Pancam composite (above) was taken at a local time of 4 pm in an eastward direction that is almost straight “downsun.” Thus surface details are largely washed out. (Click image to enlarge it.)
Opportunity raw images, its latest mission status, location map, and atmospheric opacity, known as tau.
THEMIS Image of the Day, June 21, 2017. Do you see what I see? Look out, a barrage of bullets is headed our way! (THEMIS Art #130)
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
Using the most powerful telescope ever sent to Mars, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a view of the Curiosity rover this month amid rocky mountainside terrain.
The car-size rover, climbing up lower Mount Sharp toward its next destination, appears as a blue dab against a background of tan rocks and dark sand in the enhanced-color image from the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. The exaggerated color, showing differences in Mars surface materials, makes Curiosity appear bluer than it really looks.
The image was taken on June 5, 2017, two months before the fifth anniversary of Curiosity’s landing near Mount Sharp on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6, 2017, EDT and Universal Time).
When the image was taken, Curiosity was partway between its investigation of active sand dunes lower on Mount Sharp, and “Vera Rubin Ridge,” a destination uphill where the rover team intends to examine outcrops where hematite has been identified from Mars orbit. [More at link and here]
Sol 1732-33, June 19, 2017, update by MSL scientist Mark Salvatore: As this is my first time contributing to the MSL blog, I’d like to quickly introduce myself to you all. I’m Mark, an MSL Participating Scientist and a faculty member at Northern Arizona University, trained in geochemistry, spectroscopy, and remote sensing. I’m excited to help walk you all through the daily endeavors of this wonderful rover and mission!
Curiosity continues to make progress along its planned ascent route up Mt. Sharp, and is quickly approaching the hematite-bearing Vera Rubin Ridge. As a refresher, Vera Rubin Ridge is a high-standing unit that runs parallel to and along the eastern side of the Bagnold Dunes. From orbit, Vera Rubin Ridge has been shown to exhibit signatures of hematite, an oxidized iron phase whose presence can help us to better understand the environmental conditions present when this mineral assemblage formed.
Over the weekend, Curiosity drove approximately 32 meters and parked in front of a large rocky slab (about the size of a large dining room table) with smaller rocky patches nearby, perfect for our continued documentation of the local bedrock. This slab will be extensively imaged using Mastcam. In addition to…. [More at link]
Fractured ground in Isidis Planitia. Beautiful Mars series.
THEMIS Image of the Day, June 20, 2017. Do you see what I see? Is that a praying mantis looking at me? (THEMIS Art #129)
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
Opportunity Status Report, June 13, 2017: Opportunity is at the top of Perseverance Valley on the rim of Endeavour crater.
The rover experienced a left-front wheel steering actuator stall on Sol 4750 (June 4, 2017) leaving the wheel ‘toed-out’ by 33 degrees. On Sol 4752 (June 6, 2017), the rover backed up with an arc to allow investigation of a terrain-related stall. On Sol 4754 (June 8, 2017), the left-front wheel was commanded to steer inward to straight at four different voltages along with other diagnostics.
The wheel failed to steer (zero change in encoder counts) at any of those voltages. To verify the steering diagnostic, a similar steering test was run on the left-rear wheel (known to be good) on Sol 4756 (June 10, 2017). That test of the left-rear wheel performed nominally with the wheel steering as expected, verifying our test procedure. The project is continuing the investigation of the left-front steering actuator stall. Further diagnostics are being developed along with ground testing plans.
While Opportunity’s mobility status is under evaluation, the rover continues to collect an extensive Pancam panorama called the “Sprained Ankle Panorama” of the surrounding area along with targeted 13-filter Pancam images of high-value targets… [More at links, false-color Pancam image by Holger Isenberg]
THEMIS Image of the Day, June 19, 2017. Do you see what I see? Shadows are just right to form googly eyes. (THEMIS Art #128).
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
