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November 13th, 2022
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3651 duties.
“Curiosity is continuing to climb towards a Gediz Vallis ridge viewing spot, and we can already get a glimpse of it rising in the distance,” reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
A recent plan listed collection of a large stereo Mastcam mosaic of the parts of Gediz Vallis ridge. This image combined with the ones Mars researchers hope to collect from an end-of-drive location on Monday, Fraeman adds, “will help the team decide if we want to get even closer.”
Fraeman adds that the Curiosity science team is trying to understand how Gediz Vallis ridge formed, in particular what kind of watery settings may or may not have been involved.
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Relationships
“We also want to understand how it relates to the rest of the rocks that make up Mount Sharp and Gediz Vallis channel in order to better constrain when the events that built it happened,” Fraeman notes.
A plan has the team investigating the area much closer to Curiosity over the weekend.
Being collected are Mastcam images of some rocks that have interesting textures that are unofficially named “Uruca,” “Tikwah Mine,” and “Prata.”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Large sand ridge
“We’re also snapping a photo of a large sand ridge that is right behind the rover,” Fraeman reports, and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument will zap two rock targets, “Cotingo,” and “Boca da Mata,” as well as an automatically selected target using the AEGIS (Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science) – a software suite that permits the rover to autonomously detect and prioritize targets.
Curiosity Mast Camera Right image taken on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo of brushing. Image produced on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The robot’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) will get in on the science action as well, with observations of targets named “Jutai” and “Raposa.”
A Dust Removal Tool (DRT) is to brush dust away from the Raposa target before the APXS and MAHLI observations, “so we’ll also take a Mastcam multispectral image of this less dusty area,” Fraeman adds.
Observations to model the environment around Curiosity and a drive of 164 feet (50 meters) was slated to round out the plan.
Posted in Space News
