After snagging a novel stone sample on Aug. 9, NASA's Curiosity rover surveyed its environs on Mars, producing a 360-degree panorama of its electrical flow location on Vera Rubin Ridge.
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| This 360-degree panorama was taken on Aug. nine past times NASA's Curiosity rover at its location on Vera Rubin Ridge [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS] |
The novel drill sample delighted Curiosity's scientific discipline team, because the rover's final 2 drill attempts were thwarted past times unexpectedly difficult rocks. Curiosity started using a novel drill method before this twelvemonth to move to a greater extent than or less a mechanical problem. Testing has shown it to last every bit effective at drilling rocks every bit the onetime method, suggesting the difficult rocks would receive got posed a work no affair which method was used.
There's no means for Curiosity to create upward one's heed precisely how difficult a stone volition last before drilling it, thence for this most recent drilling activity, the rover squad made an educated guess. An extensive ledge on the ridge was idea to include harder rock, able to stand upward despite air current erosion; a spot below the ledge was idea to a greater extent than probable to receive got softer, erodible rocks. That strategy seems to receive got panned out, but questions however abound every bit to why Vera Rubin Ridge exists inward the outset place.
The rover has never encountered a house alongside thence much variation inward color as well as texture, according to Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity's projection scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory inward Pasadena, California. JPL leads the Mars Science Laboratory mission that Curiosity is a purpose of.
"The ridge isn't this monolithic thing—it has 2 distinct sections, each of which has a diversity of colors," Vasavada said. "Some are visible to the oculus as well as fifty-fifty to a greater extent than demo upward when nosotros human face inward near-infrared, only beyond what our eyes tin see. Some look related to how difficult the rocks are."
The best means to uncovering why these rocks are thence difficult is to drill them into a pulverization for the rover's 2 internal laboratories. Analyzing them mightiness give away what's acting every bit "cement" inward the ridge, enabling it to stand upward despite air current erosion. Most likely, Vasavada said, groundwater flowing through the ridge inward the ancient past times had a purpose inward strengthening it, peradventure acting every bit plumbing to distribute this wind-proofing "cement."
Much of the ridge contains hematite, a mineral that forms inward water. There's such a potent hematite dot that it drew the attending of NASA orbiters similar a beacon. Could some variation inward hematite outcome inward harder rocks? Is at that topographic point something particular inward the ridge's cherry rocks that makes them thence unyielding?
For the moment, Vera Rubin Ridge is keeping its secrets to itself.
Two to a greater extent than drilled samples are planned for the ridge inward September. After that, Curiosity volition drive to its scientific goal zone: areas enriched inward clay as well as sulfate minerals above Mt. Sharp. That rising is planned for early on October.
Author: Andrew Good | Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory [September 07, 2018]
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