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The Mars rover has drilled three rock samples in this clay-enriched region since arriving in July.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has a new selfie. The latter comes from a place called “Mary Anning”, after a 19eA century English paleontologist whose discovery of marine reptile fossils has been overlooked for generations due to gender and class. The rover has been on site since last July, taking and analyzing drill samples.
Comprised of 59 photos put together by imagery specialists, the selfie was taken on October 25, 2020 – the 2922nd Martian, or ground, day of the Curiosity mission.
Scientists on the Curiosity team thought it appropriate to name the sampling site after Anning because of the area’s potential to reveal details of the ancient environment. Curiosity used the rock drill at the end of its robotic arm to take samples from three drill holes called “Mary Anning”, “Mary Anning 3” and “Groken”, the latter named after the cliffs of the islands. Shetland in Scotland. Robotics has conducted a series of advanced experiments with these samples to expand the search for organic (or carbon-based) molecules in ancient rocks.
Since landing in Gale Crater in 2012, Curiosity has climbed Mount Sharp in search of conditions that could once have supported life. Last year, the rover explored an area of Mount Sharp called Glen Torridon, which was likely home to lakes and streams billions of years ago. Scientists suspect that this is the reason why a high concentration of clay minerals and organic molecules was found there.
It will take months for the team to interpret the chemistry and minerals in samples from the Mary Anning site. In the meantime, scientists and engineers who commanded the rover from their homes as a safety measure during the coronavirus pandemic have ordered Curiosity to continue its ascent of Mount Sharp. The rover’s next exploration target is a layer of sulphate-laden rock that lies higher up the mountain. The team hopes to achieve it in early 2021.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, is leading the Curiosity mission. Curiosity took the selfie using a camera called the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located at the end of its robotic arm. (Videos explaining how Curiosity’s selfies are taken can be found here.) MAHLI was built by Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego.
For more information on Curiosity, visit:
https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/
https://nasa.gov/msl
Media contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
818-393-2433
[email protected]
Alana Johnson / Gray Gravestone
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-672-4780 / 202-358-0668
[email protected] / [email protected]
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