Blog Details

Jun 20, 2025

Written by Deborah Padgett, OPGS Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Earth planning date: Friday, June 20, 2025

At some level of the concept overlaying Sols 4575-4576, Curiosity continued our investigation of mysterious boxwork structures on the shoulders of Mount Appealing. After a successful 56-meter force (about 184 ft), Curiosity is now parked in a trough cutting by a highly fractured map covered by linear capabilities thought to be proof of groundwater drift within the far away previous of Mars. With all six wheels firmly planted on solid ground, our rover is ready for contact science! Unfortunately, a repeat of the frost-detection experiment anticipated for the weekend thought is postponed for a couple of days on account of a effectively-understood ChemCam squawk. In the duration in-between, our atmospheric investigations enjoy a giant gamble to shine, as they obtained time previous regulation to take a look at the Martian sky.

In the early afternoon of Sol 4577, Curiosity’s navigation cameras will rob a movie of the upper reaches of Aeolis Mons (Mount Appealing), hoping to ogle transferring cloud shadows. This observation lets within the team to calculate the altitude of clouds drifting over the height. Subsequent, Navcam will level straight up, to image cloud rush at the zenith and resolve wind route at their altitude. Mastcam will then get a chain of minute mosaics to gaze the rover workspace and capabilities of the trough that Curiosity has entered. First is a 6×4 stereo mosaic of the workspace and the contact science targets “Copacabana” and “Copiapo.” The main target is a advisor sample of the trough bedrock, and its name celebrates a metropolis in Bolivia located on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The second target is a little bit of lighter-toned fabric, which will almost definitely be associated with stripes or “veins” filling the many crosscutting fractures within the native stones. These are the deposits doubtlessly left by groundwater intrusion technique abet. The name “Copiapo” honors a silver mining metropolis within the extraordinarily dry Atacama desolate tract of northern Chile. A second 6×3 Mastcam stereo mosaic will ogle at active cracks within the trough. Two extra 5×1 Mastcam stereo mosaics target “Ardamarca,” a ridge parallel to the trough walls, and a cliff exposing layers of rock at the inaccurate of “Mishe Mokwa” butte. At our present save of dwelling, your whole Curiosity target names are taken from the Uyuni geologic quadrangle named after the otherworldly lake mattress and ephemeral lake excessive on the Bolivian altiplano, nonetheless the Mishe Mokwa butte is abet within the Altadena quad, named for a favored ice climbing path within the Santa Monica Mountains. After this prolonged science block, Curiosity will deploy its arm, brush the mud from Copacabana with the DRT, then image each and each it and Copiapo with the MAHLI tiny imager. In a single day, APXS will resolve the composition of these two targets. 

Early within the morning of Sol 4578, Mastcam will rob enormous 27×5 and 18×3 stereo mosaics of diversified substances of the trough, utilizing morning light to highlight the terrain shadows. Later within the day, Navcam will get a 360 sky gaze, figuring out phase operate all over the final sky. A 25-meter force (about 82 ft) will note, and the put up-force imaging involves each and each a 360-diploma Navcam panorama of our original save of dwelling and a image of the bottom beneath the rover with MARDI within the evening twilight. The next sol is all atmospheric science, with an intensive position of afternoon suprahorizon motion photos and a mud-satan gaze for Navcam, to boot to a Mastcam mud opacity observation. The final position of observations on this thought happens on the morning of Sol 4580 with more Navcam suprahorizon and zenith motion photos to take a look at clouds, a Navcam mud opacity dimension all over Gale Crater, and a closing Mastcam tau. On Monday, we demand to thought one other force and hope to come abet to the frost-detection experiment rapidly as we explore the boxwork canyons of Mars.

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