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    Mount Sharp tagged posts

    Sandy Selfie sent from NASA Mars Rover

    February 1, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover

    This Jan. 19, 2016, self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at “Namib Dune,” where the rover’s activities included scuffing into the dune with a wheel and scooping samples of sand for laboratory analysis. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

    The new selfie combines 57 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of Curiosity’s arm on Jan. 19. The rover has been investigating a group of active sand dunes for 2 months, studying how the wind moves and sorts sand particles on Mars. The site is part of Bagnold Dune Field, which lines the northwestern flank of Mars’ Mount Sharp.

    When the component images were taken, the rover had scuffed the edge of “Namib Dune” and collected the first of 3 scoops of sand from that dune...

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    NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has begun an up-close investigation of Dark sand dunes

    December 13, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    NASA Mars Rover Curiosity reaches sand dunes

    The rippled surface of the first Martian sand dune ever studied up close fills this view of “High Dune” from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Curiosity rover. This site is part of the “Bagnold Dunes” field along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. The dunes are active, migrating up to about one yard or meter per year. The component images of this mosaic view were taken on Nov. 27, 2015, during the 1,176th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s work on Mars. The scene is presented with a color adjustment that approximates white balancing, to resemble how the sand would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. The annotated version includes superimposed scale bars of 30 centimeters (1 foot) in the foreground and 100 centimeters (3.3 feet) in the middle distance...

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    Mars Panorama from Curiosity Shows Petrified Sand Dunes

    September 13, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Vista from Curiosity Shows Crossbedded Martian Sandstone

    Large-scale crossbedding in the sandstone of this ridge on a lower slope of Mars’ Mount Sharp is typical of windblown sand dunes that have petrified. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

    Some of the dark sandstone in an area being explored by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows texture and inclined bedding structures characteristic of deposits that formed as sand dunes, then cemented into rock. This sandstone outcrop, part of a geological layer that Curiosity’s science team calls the Stimson unit, has a structure called crossbedding on a large scale that is interpreted as deposits of sand dunes formed by wind.

    Similar-looking petrified sand dunes are common in the U.S. Southwest...

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    NASA’s Curiosity show Silica-rich Mars rocks—might preserve ancient Organics

    July 25, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

     

    Approaching its 3rd anniversary of Mars landing, the rover has found a target unlike anything it has studied before – bedrock with surprisingly high levels of silica. Silica is a rock-forming compound containing silicon and oxygen, commonly found on Earth as quartz. This area lies just downhill from a geological contact zone the rover has been studying near “Marias Pass” on lower Mount Sharp.

    >>Curiosity team decided to back up the rover 151 feet from the geological contact zone to investigate the high-silica target dubbed “Elk.” The decision was made after they analyzed data from 2 instruments, the laser-firing Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), which show elevated amounts of silicon and hydrogen, respectively...

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