THEMIS Image of the Day, November 1, 2016. The margin of Olympus Mons consists of a cliff-like edge where elevation changes very quickly over a very small width. This edge is called Olympus Rupes. This VIS image shows part of that edge and the lava flows that spilled over the edge to flood the surrounding plains.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
Sol 1507, October 31, 2016, update by USGS scientist Lauren Edgar: Happy Halloween from Mars! Over the weekend Curiosity drove 51 m further to the south, and we continue to investigate the Murray formation. I was the GSTL and KOP today (what a treat!) and we had a busy morning trying to decide whether or not to do contact science or more remote sensing. We decided to forego contact science in favor of some additional ChemCam and Mastcam observations. In the spirit of Halloween, today’s targets include “Witch Hole Pond” and “Blackwoods” to assess the chemistry of the Murray formation and to investigate some interesting sedimentary structures. We’ll also use Mastcam for environmental monitoring to measure the… [More at link]
Modified crater on graben floor. Beautiful Mars series.
Sol 4539, October 30, 2016. With the top of Spirit Mound making a rampart in front of the rover, the Navcam looks above and beyond, framing the south-trending rim material of Endeavour Crater at right. Click to enlarge (2.5 MB).
Opportunity raw images, its latest mission status, a location map. and atmospheric opacity, known as tau.
Sol 1504-6, October 28, 2016, update by USGS scientist Ryan Anderson: It’s Friday, so that means we have another busy weekend plan! Our 37 meter drive yesterday brought us to a very interesting location with lots of targets to choose from in front of the rover. The weekend plan starts off on Sol 1504 with ChemCam and Mastcam observations of the veins “Cedar Swamp” and “Cadillac Mountain.” After that the arm will reach out…. [More at link]
Sol 1505, October 30, 2016. The ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) nabbed a two-frame portrait of Egg Rock, a small meteorite, probably nickel-iron. 
The white dots are laser-zap points. Below: where the meteorite was found (arrow), in a Mastcam frame on Sol 1503. Click either image to enlarge.
Sol 1505 raw images (from all cameras), and Curiosity’s latest location. [More on Egg Rock here]
THEMIS Image of the Day, October 31, 2016. This VIS image shows a group of craters in Terra Sirenum. The elongate crater in the top half of the image has numerous gullies dissecting the inner crater rim as will has channels that have dissected the block of material near the center of the crater. It appears that these channel are possible extensions of the rim gullies.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
Sol 1503, October 28, 2016, update by USGS scientist Ryan Anderson: Everything went well in yesterday’s plan, with our drive taking us 25 meters farther along our “Mt. Sharp Ascent Route.” We started the day with some challenges caused by connectivity issues with team members outside of the US, particularly the ChemCam team. They were able to get at least one computer connected to JPL, however, so we were able to plan without too much trouble overall.
Today’s plan for sol 1503 is pretty straightforward: We start off with a ChemCam observation and Mastcam documentation of the target “Somesville” to study how the composition of the bedrock changes across a light-to-dark transition. After that, we will… [More at link]
Dipping dots, meet dipping layers. Beautiful Mars series.
