By 
April 7th, 2018
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2015 duties.
The rover has wheeled into a candy store of sorts, reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“Like Harry Potter in Honeydukes or Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, Curiosity rolled up to the proverbial candy store today,” Minitti adds, wondering “where to begin?!”
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Picking favorites
“The variety of rock types in the workspace, the likes of which had not been seen for many hundreds of sols, made picking favorites a challenge,” Minitti explains.
The job of surveying the variety was made easier by the opportunities to get four targets with a combination of Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam).
MAHLI and APXS will image and analyze, respectively, the two large, gray blocks near the rover, “Staffa” and “Tyndrum.”
Curiosity Mastcam Left photo taken on Sol 2013, April 5, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Bright white rock
MAHLI and ChemCam will image and shoot, respectively, the targets “Askival,” a bright white rock positioned above Tyndrum, and “Hopeman,” a lumpy rock which might be a conglomerate, Minitti adds.
The robot’s Mastcam will cover much of the workspace taking imagery to get more detailed views of all the lithologies present, and will add multispectral observations over Hopeman, Askival and Tyndrum.
Embarrassment of riches
“The atmosphere also got plenty of attention,” Minitti says, with mid- and late-day dust devil movies, early morning and late day cloud and dust observations, and an APXS Argon analysis.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Even with the embarrassment of riches in the weekend plan, the science team could not resist another shopping spree here,” Minitti concludes. “The weekend drive will pull us around the right side of the workspace to access some of the rocks that were not reachable from today’s parking spot. Stay tuned for more fun next week!”
New and different
Curiosity is exploring something new and different, explains Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona: “For much of the last year, Curiosity has been exploring fine-grained rocks along Vera Rubin Ridge, and investigating red and gray color variations. Recently, something else caught our eye: dark cobbles and boulders exposed in patches.”
Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Edgar adds that the rover has surveyed some similar blocky deposits earlier in the mission, “but it’s definitely been a while.”
These interesting rocks, Edgar points out, led the science team to decide to spend the weekend at a patch of these dark blocky deposits.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Erosional history
After Curiosity’s drive of roughly 60 feet (18 meters), the plan calls for taking post-drive imaging to prepare for contact science in the weekend plan, and we’ll acquire an overnight APXS atmospheric observation.
“I’m looking forward to learning more about these blocky deposits,” Edgar concludes, “and how they relate to the depositional and erosional history preserved at Vera Rubin Ridge!”
Posted in Space News
