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NASA’s Curiosity rover just celebrated its 3,000th day on Mars by taking a remarkable photo of the Red Planet.
The rover, which landed on the Martian surface on August 6, 2012, took the image of Gale crater, including Mount Sharp, the massive mountain inside the crater. In a statement accompanying the accomplishment, NASA said there was a “series of boulders” seen in the image that surprised scientists.
“Our science team is excited to understand how they formed and what they mean for Gale’s ancient environment,” Ashwin Vasavada, scientist for the Curiosity project, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. .
This panorama, made up of 122 individual assembled images, was taken by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on November 18, 2020, the 2946th Martian, or ground, day of the mission. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
THE CURIOSITY OF NASA MARS ROVER IS BASED ON AN AMAZING PANORAMA OF THE RED PLANET
The panoramic image is the composite of 122 images taken on November 18, 2020, the 2946th ground (or day) on Mars. A Martian soil is slightly longer than a day on Earth, at 24 hours and 39 minutes.
In August, the Curiosity Mars rover celebrated eight years on the Red Planet. At the time, NASA marked this feat, noting that it had traveled over 14 miles by that time, drilling 26 rock samples and collecting six soil samples to determine that the ancient Mars “was indeed conducive to life “.
The rover made a number of discoveries during its time on Mars, including detecting an “abnormally high” level of methane on the Red Planet.
As of August 2019, scientists were still unsure of the cause of the methane. Some scientists have ruled out that the peak was caused by wind erosion of rocks that had trapped methane from fluid inclusions and fractures on the surface of the Red Planet.
On Earth, methane is produced from both biological and geological sources.
In 2018, NASA revealed that the rover had found organic molecules.
In addition, the rover took a multitude of photos of the planet, as well as those of Earth and Venus from its vantage point. In August 2020, the rover spotted a dust devil traveling on the surface of Mars.
The Curiosity rover will be joined on the red planet by the Perseverance Mars 2020 rover, which is scheduled to land on the Jezero crater on Mars on February 18, 2021. The mission duration on the surface of the red planet is at least one Martian year , or about 687 days.
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