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August 20th, 2016
This 360-degree vista was acquired on Aug. 5, 2016, by the Mastcam on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover as the rover neared features called “Murray Buttes” on lower Mount Sharp. The dark, flat-topped mesa seen to the left of the rover’s arm is about 50 feet high and, near the top, about 200 feet wide.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1436 – returning detailed imagery of eroded mesas and buttes, even churning out a new 360-degree color panorama of the scenery.
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 1435, August 19, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
As noted in a Jet Propulsion Laboratory release: “The buttes and mesas are capped with rock that is relatively resistant to wind erosion. This helps preserve these monumental remnants of a layer that formerly more fully covered the underlying layer that the rover is now driving on.”
For taking your own panoramic look at the Martian surroundings in which Curiosity has encountered, go to:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-213
Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B image taken on Sol 1435, August 19, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity made use of its Mast Camera (Mastcam) to capture dozens of component images of this scene on Aug. 5, 2016, four years after Curiosity’s landing inside Gale Crater in 2012.
New just-in imagery shows a self-inspection of the robot’s wheels.
Engineers have been monitoring wear and tear of the robot’s wheels due to the rocky conditions upon which the rover travels.
Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, took this image on August 19, 2016, Sol 1435.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, took this image on August 19, 2016, Sol 1435.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Posted in Space News
