Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Dust devil survey image looking across the crater trench toward the northern rim on sol 2632. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2637 duties.

Claire Newman, an atmospheric scientist at Aeolis in Pasadena, California reports that telemetry recently showed one of Curiosity’s middle wheels was lifted, roughly 6 inches (15 centimeters) off the ground following a previous drive.

Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 2636, January 5 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“This meant we needed to do a short ‘bump’ to adjust the rover’s position ready for Monday’s planning and had to postpone the contact science we want to do while the rover sits at its highest point on Western Butte,” Newman explains. “Instead, we focused on doing all the remote surface science needed here and catching up on atmospheric monitoring observations after the holidays.”

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 2636, January 5, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Western Butte mosaics

Recent remote sensing observations by the robot included Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam)  rasters and Mastcam images of dark float blocks (“Shiskine” and “Lauderdale”) and a vein complex (“Hascosay”), Remote Micro Imager (RMI) telescope mosaics on Gediz Valles mound materials (“Craw Tap” and “Gowrie”), Mastcam multispectral observations of Lauderdale, and Mastcam mosaics of the Western Butte top and the Greenheugh Pediment.

Also taken was a Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) image to monitor surface changes underneath the rover.

Atmospheric science activities included regular Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) atmospheric monitoring, Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) monitoring, and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive and active measurements of the subsurface.

Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 2636, January 5, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Dust devil survey

“In the first sol, we also planned a Dust Devil Survey to look for dust-filled convective vortices around local noon, when convection is strong. This was followed by late afternoon activities in the first sol and early morning activities in the third sol, all of which involved making measurements of aerosols (dust or water ice),” Newman adds.

The two timings were chosen partly so scientists have some idea how aerosols change with time of sol, but also because imaging early or late in the day is often the best time to find clouds, because relative humidity increases when temperatures cool (provided the amount of water vapor stays the same).

Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo taken on Sol 2635, January 4, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“In the late afternoon on the first sol, we planned Mastcam measurements of the atmospheric aerosol opacity in the column above us and Mastcam and Navcam measurements of the visibility across the crater,” Newman points out. “We also planned three cloud observations with Navcam: a Phase Function Sky Survey – a set of images that we use to infer the properties of cloud particles; a Cloud Altitude Observation – movies of clouds and their shadows on Mt. Sharp that, in combination, allow us to infer both the height and speed of the clouds; and a Supra-Horizon movie that looks for clouds over the rim of the crater.”

Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo taken on Sol 2636, January 5, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Measuring methane

Lastly, Newman notes that early in the third sol, scientists again measured the column and across-crater opacity with Mastcam, then took Navcam Zenith and Supra-Horizon movies to look for clouds above Mt. Sharp and the crater rim, respectively.

Also, the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite team decided to repeat an atmospheric observation to measure the methane abundance, and this was performed in the third sol of the plan.

“Having ‘un-wheelied’ in this plan,” Newman concludes, “we’ll be doing the contact science we missed over the weekend, then heading down the Western Butte again and toward the Greenheugh pediment.”

Curiosity Chemistry & Camera Remote Micro Imager (RMI) telescope photo taken on Sol 2636, January 5, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL