Sol 765, October 1, 2014. Afternoon sunlight throws the shadow of the right front wheel onto the Pahrump outcrop, the rover’s current workspace.
NASA description: This image was taken by Front Hazcam: Left B (FHAZ_LEFT_B) onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 765 (2014-10-01 07:12:30 UTC).
Sol 765 raw images (from all cameras), and Curiosity’s latest location map.
Planetary Geomorphology Image of the Month, October 2014: Andreas Johnsson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden).
The question whether Martian gullies formed by fluvial processes or by dry mass wasting have been a source of heated debate ever since their discovery (Malin and Edgett, 2000). Intense research within the last decade however points to a fluvial origin for a majority of gully landforms on Mars. This is supported by Earth-analog studies (e.g., Reiss et al., 2011), modelling and morphology (e.g., Mangold et al., 2010) and their regional context (e.g., Balme et al. 2006; Kneissl et al. 2010). Recently Dickson et al. (2009) suggested that gullies are due to degradation of a dust-ice mantle which drapes the underlying bedrock. The latitude-dependent dust-ice mantle… [More at link]
The north polar hood condensate clouds continued to dominate mid-to-high northern latitudes this past week. Water-ice clouds and large-scale dust storms, associated with eastward traveling fronts, were observed along the edge of the polar hood from Acidalia to Utopia and as far east as western Arcadia… [More at link, including video]
ExoMars is a joint two-mission endeavour between ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency. The Trace Gas Orbiter and an entry, descent, and landing demonstrator module, Schiaparelli, will be launched in January 2016, arriving at Mars nine months later. The Rover and Surface Platform will depart in May 2018, with touchdown on Mars in January 2019. The search for a suitable landing site for the second mission began in December 2013, when the science community was asked to propose candidates…
Following additional review by an ESA-appointed panel, the four sites have now been formally recommended for further detailed analysis. The sites – Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum, Hypanis Valles and Aram Dorsum – are all located relatively close to the equator… [More at link]
Sol 766, September 30, 2014, update from MSL Scientist Lauren Edgar: “Curiosity is currently investigating the Pahrump Hills outcrop. This Navcam image from Sol 762 shows part of the workspace with the arm down, analyzing the Confidence Hills drill tailings. While we wait for CheMin to tell us what minerals are present in the drilled sample, we will spend Sol 766 doing targeted remote sensing. The two-hour science block includes ChemCam…” [More at link]
In a meeting [Sept 30] in Toronto, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), signed two documents to launch a NASA-ISRO satellite mission to observe Earth and establish a pathway for future joint missions to explore Mars. While attending the International Astronautical Congress, the two space agency leaders met to discuss and sign a charter that establishes a NASA-ISRO Mars Working Group to investigate enhanced cooperation between the two countries in Mars exploration… [More at link]
THEMIS Image of the Day, October 1, 2014. This VIS image spans from Tithonium Chasma (top of image) to Ius Chasma (bottom of image).
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
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