Sol 1066, August 6, 2015. The left-side Navcam looks behind as Curiosity rolls away from the Lion target and outcrop. The layered ridge in the middle ground is Apikuni Mountain; the lower slopes of Mount Sharp rise in the distance far behind. (Click to enlarge.)
Sol 1066 raw images (from all cameras), and Curiosity’s latest location map.
Possible clay-rich terrain along a crater rim. Beautiful Mars series.
Sol 1066, August 5, 2015, update from USGS scientist Lauren Edgar: Tonight marks the third anniversary of Curiosity’s landing in Gale crater. It’s been a great three years, full of a number of important science discoveries. Check out this video and webpage for a summary of some of the top science results so far.
To celebrate starting her 4th year on Mars, Curiosity is driving away from the Lion outcrop, and back toward the Missoula outcrop. I feel like Curiosity has really grown up in these past couple of years, and she’s acting like a true field geologist – quickly interpreting key science data, and revisiting sites that will improve our understanding of the geologic history here. In today’s plan, Curiosity will make a couple of final observations at Lion before driving away. [More at link]
Stake your claim in Peridier Crater; the crater is massive and very ancient, about 100 km in diameter. Named after Julien Peridier, French electrical engineer and amateur astronomer.
Beautiful Mars series.
THEMIS Image of the Day, August 6, 2015. The THEMIS VIS camera contains 5 filters. The data from different filters can be combined in multiple ways to create a false color image. These false color images may reveal subtle variations of the surface not easily identified in a single band image. Today’s false color image shows part of the dune field on the floor of Rabe Crater.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
On the three-year anniversary of the Mars landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover, NASA is unveiling two new online tools that open the mysterious terrain of the Red Planet to a new generation of explorers, inviting the public to help with its journey to Mars.
Mars Trek is a free, Web-based application that provides high-quality, detailed visualizations of the planet using real data from 50 years of NASA exploration and allowing astronomers, citizen scientists and students to study the Red Planet’s features. Experience Curiosity allows viewers to journey along with the one-ton rover on its Martian expeditions. The program simulates Mars in 3-D based on actual data from Curiosity and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), giving users first-hand experience in a day in the life of a Mars rover.
A NASA team already is using Mars Trek to aid in the selection of possible landing sites for the agency’s Mars 2020 rover, and the application will be used as part of NASA’s newly announced process to examine and select candidate sites for the first human exploration mission to Mars in the 2030s. [More at link]
The red planet displayed dust storms and diffuse water-ice clouds over the southern highlands for the past week. Further towards the pole, the south polar hood was developing as the seasons progressed. Looking more northward to the low latitudes, water-ice cloud activity was spotted over the large volcanoes and many high plateaus each afternoon. [More at link, including video]
Sol 4098, August 4, 2015. The Hazcams, front (at top) and rear (bottom), capture Opportunity’s location on the slope of Marathon Valley. The local times are 2:43 pm (front cam) and 3:41 pm (rear cam). The front Hazcam points upslope and partially into the Sun, hence the lens flare. Click to enlarge.
Opportunity raw images, its latest mission status, a location map. and atmospheric opacity, known as tau.
Sol 1065, August 4, 2015, update from USGS scientist Lauren Edgar: It’s been a great couple of weeks at the Lion outcrop, but it’s time to move on. After a successful investigation that included observations by almost every science instrument, we’re getting ready to drive away tomorrow. That means that today (and tomorrow before we drive) is the last call for science observations.
So we put together a full plan for Sol 1066. In the morning we’ll acquire ChemCam on the target “McClure” to look for chemical variations across the outcrop. We’ll also take a Mastcam image of “Calamity,” as part of a change-detection experiment. Then we’ll acquire MAHLI and APXS on the pre-sieve dump pile, with some additional documentation images. “Pre-sieve” refers to the sample material that didn’t make it through the sieve, in other words, the larger size fraction. [More at link]
THEMIS Image of the Day, August 5, 2015. The THEMIS VIS camera contains 5 filters. The data from different filters can be combined in multiple ways to create a false color image. These false color images may reveal subtle variations of the surface not easily identified in a single band image. Today’s false color image shows an unnamed crater in Noachis Terra.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
