Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

These float rocks appear to have originated in the Marker Band, which can be seen running from lower left to upper right in the accompanying Navcam image. Marker Band is in the upper left of this image. Photo taken by Curiosity’s Left Navigation Camera on Sol 3642, November 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3643 duties.

“We are perched just below the ‘Marker Band,’ a thin dark band whose origin is unclear,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3642, November 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars researchers have found some amazing textured float rocks in the rover’s workspace but were not in a good position to do contact science here, so Curiosity moved back a little in order to obtain science data, O’Connell-Cooper adds.

Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3642, November 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Float rocks

“These float rocks appear to have originated in the Marker Band…there are several different textures here – the most noticeable are the ropey elongated ridge features, or “sausages” as one of our colleagues Juergen described them,” O’Connell-Cooper explains. “Underlying the sausages features is smoother bedrock. There are also rougher areas on top of the sausages, which look like they might have been altered (by later fluid movement for example). Finally we have the underlying non-Marker Band bedrock, the smooth rock the floats themselves are sitting on.”

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3642, November 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

O’Connell-Cooper notes it was hard to narrow down research choices with so many interesting targets; “we wanted to do a little bit of everything.”

Brushed targets

The rover planners were game to get as much in as possible, so the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) were to get a rare triple whammy of targets: unbrushed on the sausages at “Iracema,” brushed underlying smooth float rock at “Mel” and then brushed in-place non-Marker Band bedrock at “Mamupi.”

Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo taken on Sol 3642, November 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Curiosity’s Mastcam was to obtain multispectral imagery on both brushed targets and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) was slated to use Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to also analyze the bedrock at Mel.

Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3642, November 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Ropey textures

ChemCam is then slated to turn its focus onto the in-place Marker Band above the robot, using the Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) to picture the ropey textures at “Pintada” and LIBS to analyze “Soco,” a bright rock where the Marker Band is in contact with the local bedrock.

RMI will also capture images of layering within that in-place Marker Band at “Buena Vista.”

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3642, November 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Document stratigraphy

The robot’s Mastcam continues to document stratigraphy in this area, taking a very large mosaic (83 images) along the Marker Band itself and a slightly smaller (46 images) mosaic on “Canta,” a butte in the distance but above the Marker Band, O’Connell-Cooper reports.

“Once all of this has been completed, we drive a short distance, scooching closer to the in-place Marker Band,” O’Connell-Cooper adds, as part of the now-in-motion weekend plan.