- 4169 - MARS - watery history under study? Curiosity Mars rover reaches perilous ridge on Red Planet after 3 failed attempts. Curiosity captured a 360-degree panorama while parked below “Gediz Vallis Ridge”, a formation that preserves a record of one of the last wet periods seen on this part of Mars.
--------------------- 4169 - MARS - watery history under study?
- Curiosity Mars
rover reaches perilous ridge on Red Planet after 3 failed attempts. Curiosity captured a 360-degree panorama
while parked below “Gediz Vallis Ridge”, a formation that preserves a record of
one of the last wet periods seen on this part of Mars.
-
- On September 18,
2021, NASA confirmed that, after three failed attempts, its Curiosity Mars
rover managed to reach a precarious destination on this Red Planet.
-
- As to why this
formation was worth such turmoil for Curiosity? Scientists believe that three
billion years ago, when Mars was much wetter than the arid land it is now,
powerful debris flows carried mud and boulders down the side of a mountain in
the vicinity known as Mount Sharp. This
debris spread into a fan that was later eroded by wind into a towering ridge.
-
- That story means
this ridge holds proof of Mars' blue watery past and maybe more excitingly,
information about the planet's ancient, dangerous landslides. Huge rocks were ripped out of the mountain
high above, rushed downhill, and spread out into a fan below.
-
- The target was
reached on the 3,923rd Martian day (sol), of the mission. After settling in,
Curiosity's Mastcam took 136 individual images of the site that were stitched
together to form a 360-degree panorama that was later color-enhanced for visual
purposes.
-
- To get to the Gediz
Vallis Ridge, Curiosity had to get past quite a few hurdles. First, the rover
had some trouble accessing this long-sought region on the Red Planet after
scaling a spot in 2021 known as the Greenheugh Pediment.
-
- Then, last year,
2020, Curiosity ran into some
knife-edged "gator-back" rocks stippled along another possible path
to the ridge. The moniker "gator-back" comes from the fact these
rocks resemble scales on an alligator's back. They're believed to be made of
sandstone, which also made them the hardest type of rock Curiosity had run into
on Mars.
-
- And earlier this
year, 2021, Curiosity faced another
setback on the way to Gediz Vallis after checking out the Marker Band Valley.
Getting out of Marker Band, NASA said at the time, was comparable to partaking
in a Martian "slip-and-slide." That whole ordeal left Curiosity in
delicate shape.
-
- After three years,
we finally found a spot where Mars allowed Curiosity to safely access the steep
ridge. It’s a thrill to be able to reach
out and touch rocks that were transported from places high up on Mount Sharp
that we’ll never be able to visit with Curiosity.
-
- Curiosity was never
meant to make the climb towards Mount Sharp's peak, which means dissecting
rocks on the ground that once stood at the formation's apex is a uniquely
important opportunity.
-
- The rover has been
exploring the 3-mile-tall mountain since 2014, stumbling upon evidence of
ancient streams. Gediz Vallis ridge was
a whole new area to investigate and the youngest section of the region.
-
- Curiosity spent 11
days at the ridge after its mid-August arrival. During this time, it
photographed dark rocks in the region that "clearly originated elsewhere
on the mountain," as well as others lower on the ridgeline, "some as
large as cars." These shards are expected to have come from higher places
on Mount Sharp.
-
- The rover offered
scientists the first-ever up-close views of a geologic creature called a
"debris flow fan," which refers to a phenomenon where debris flowing
down a slope spreads out into a fan shape.
-
- With Gediz Vallis
under its belt at last, Curiosity is headed to find a path above the ridge to
learn about the watery history of Mount Sharp.
-
-
September 27, 2023 4169
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