THEMIS Image of the Day, September 29, 2016. n the bottom half of this VIS image is a line of small volcanic vents. These vents emplaced lava to both sides of the vent ridge. The linear contact of dark/bright surface reveals the extent of the vent flows.
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Sol 1473, September 27, 2016. The Mastcam (with its 34mm wide-angle lens) took a six-frame composite (5.2 MB) of the cross-bedded outcrop Kopong, mentioned in the USGS Curiosity update below, and its immediate surroundings. Note the light-tone veins running all through the rock and its nodule-like weathering texture. (Click image to enlarge.)
Sol 1473 raw images (from all cameras), and Curiosity’s latest location.
Sol 1474, September 27, 2016, update by USGS scientist Ken Herkenhoff: The 16-meter drive on Sol 1473 completed perfectly, placing the rover in position for contact science on an outcrop of cross-bedded Murray bedrock. The primary goal for Sol 1474 is to characterize the cross-bedding and measure grain sizes using MAHLI, and we were able to squeeze in a lot of other good observations. Before the arm is deployed, ChemCam will measure the chemical composition of the “Kopong” bedrock target, Mastcam will acquire mosaics of the Kopong outcrop and a couple of blocks behind it, and Navcam will search for clouds. [More at link]
Sols 4505-07, September 26-28, 2016. Above is a shot looking over Spirit Mound toward a boulder field out on the floor of Endeavour Crater. At right is a three-shot composite (1.7 MB) taken over three sols of the workspace that the rover’s arm can reach. (All are false-color Pancam reconstructions by Holger Isenberg; all enlarge when clicked.)
Opportunity raw images, its latest mission status, a location map. and atmospheric opacity, known as tau.
THEMIS Image of the Day, September 28, 2016. This VIS image shows two craters in Terra Cimmeria. The inner crater impacted at some time after the outer crater was created. The rim of the smaller, interior crater has several gullies on the south facing side.
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Sol 1473, September 27, 2016. After all the recent driving, including 16 meters (53 feet) today, Curiosity is now well away from the Murray Buttes seen in the rear Hazcam view, below right. Meanwhile, at near right, the front Hazcam shows a few nicely layered rocks dead ahead. Both images reveal bright veins in the rocks on the ground.
Click either image to enlarge, and note that the rear Hazcam image contains a lot of noise.
Sol 1473 raw images (from all cameras), and Curiosity’s latest location.
THEMIS Image of the Day, September 27, 2016. This VIS image shows part of the South Polar cap. As spring moves into the summer the surface frost is reduced and the surface texture of the ice is revealed.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
Sol 1473, September 26, 2016, update by USGS scientist Lauren Edgar: Over the weekend Curiosity drove 43 m to the south, in search of a good place for contact science. Unfortunately, our present location is in a small valley, and we don’t have many good rock targets in the workspace. After evaluating the Mastcam drive direction imaging, we decided to drive further to the southwest. This should put us in front of a small exposure… [More at link]
Irregular basin floor material. Beautiful Mars series.
