Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

A large, dark, shiny boulder called “Island Davaar” is visible in the distance – in the center of this image. It does not look like any other rocks in the surrounding landscape. This image was taken by Right Navigation Camera on Sol 2963, December 6, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2966 duties.

The rover has hit the road again, heading towards the contact with a rubbly-looking geologic unit on the way up Mount Sharp, reports Melissa Rice, a planetary geologist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.

The robot was scheduled to make a pit stop to look at a large, dark, shiny boulder called “Island Davaar” with its Mastcam filter set.

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 2965, December 8, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Rock from space?

“The boulder, which is visible in the distance from our current position,” Rice adds, “does not look like any other rocks in the surrounding landscape. Previously along Curiosity’s traverse, rocks that are distinctly dark and shiny have turned out to be iron meteorites.”

A recent mid-drive imaging by Curiosity will help scientists determine whether “Island Davaar” comes from a different geologic unit in Mount Sharp, or whether it is indeed a rock from space.

Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B photo acquired on Sol 2965, December 8, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“The boulder’s spectrum in visible and near-infrared light, as seen from Mastcam’s fourteen different filters, will have a distinct shape if it is an iron meteorite,” Rice explains.

Curiosity was to wrap up science observations from its current location, Rice concludes, including Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) observations of the bedrock target “Achnasheen,” Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) observations on two other rock targets (“Rattray” and “White Coomb”), and Mastcam imaging of regions in front of the rover and out towards the horizon.