What just happened? NASA has shared images recently captured by Curiosity as the rover travels from a clay-rich region of Mars to one formed primarily by a salt mineral known as sulfate. The space agency chose these two regions in hopes of learning more about the planet’s aqueous past, but it turns out that the transition area between them is proving to be quite enlightening.
The photo above is a mosaic of six images captured by the Curiosity stick camera on June 2, 2022. The layers of flaky rock depicted in the photo are believed to have formed in an ancient pond or bed of a stream.
Curiosity has been making its way to the foothills of a three-mile-high mountain known as Mount Sharp since 2014. At the base is the clay-rich area, which was probably home to streams and lakes. . Further up the transition zone, observations suggest that the streams dissipated in drip. Eventually, sand dunes formed over the lake sediments.
“We no longer see the deposits of the lake we saw for years below on Mount Sharp,” said Ashwin Vasavada, a scientist in the Curiosity project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Instead, we see a lot of evidence of drier climates, like dry dunes that sometimes had streams around them. That’s a big change from the lakes that persisted for perhaps millions of years before.”
(This image was captured on May 19, 2022 by the Curiosity stick camera)
NASA said the rover will soon drill its final sample into the transition region to better see the changing mineral composition of the rocks.
Curiosity landed on Mars in August 2012 and has since been studying the climate and geology of the red planet. Not surprisingly, the rover is starting to show signs of wear and tear after nearly a decade of operation. One of its aluminum wheels has lost several of its treads, but that doesn’t seem to be a major concern.
“We have demonstrated through ground testing that we can safely drive the wheel rims if necessary,” said Megan Lin, Curiosity project director at JPL.