Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

This image was taken by Curiosity’s Mastcam: Left on Sol 981 (2015-05-11) 01:35:15 UTC).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has wheeled around troublesome ripples of Martian sand…putting itself into position to view the terrain ahead.

“Unfortunately, the images taken from the new location show more sandy ripples between the rover and the sharp transition between bright and dark rocks that we would like to examine close up,” explains Ken Herkenhoff of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Image taken May 12 by Curiosity’s Front Hazcam: Left B on Sol 982.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Rover teams have scripted a plan to go around the ripples, then search for a safe path ahead, Herkenhoff says.

This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 981 Martian day, or Sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (May, 11, 2015).
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) onboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Meanwhile, the robot has relayed new panoramas of its surroundings, showing hills near and far along Curiosity’s route. The rover inspected a site where a valley was cut into bedrock, then refilled. A site of that type had not been seen previously on Mars, explains the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Curiosity website.

Curiosity has been on a roll studying Mars since its landing in 2012.