Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

This image was taken by Curiosity’s Front Hazcam: Right B on April 8, 2015, Sol 949.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover continues to probe exposed mineral veins at “Garden City” – an investigation that tells the story of a wet environment after lake-bed deposits became rock.

According to Mars scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. the veins appear as a network of ridges left standing above the now eroded-away bedrock in which they formed.

Individual ridges range up to about 2.5 inches (6 centimeters) high and half that in width, and they bear both bright and dark material.

This image was taken by Curiosity’s Navcam: Left B on April 8, 2015, Sol 949.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Two-tone mineral veins offer clues about multiple episodes of fluid movement. These episodes occurred later than the wet environmental conditions that formed lake-bed deposits that Curiosity examined at Mount Sharp’s base.

Curiosity’s mission is to examine environments that offered favorable conditions for microbial life on ancient Mars, if the planet ever has hosted microbes, and the changes from those environments to drier conditions that have prevailed on Mars for more than three billion years.

Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the arm of the rover provides close-up views of mineral veins at a site called “Garden City” on lower Mount Sharp. Using an onboard focusing process MAHLI created this product by merging two to eight images previously taken by the instrument. Curiosity performed the merge on April 7, 2015 on Sol 948 of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS