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The Red Planet is less of a mystery to Earth viewers thanks to new photographs released by NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover, revealing jagged mountainous terrain some 392.72 million kilometers from Earth.
The rover scaled a Martian mountain dubbed Mount Sharp, which is five miles high with a 96-mile-wide basin of the planet’s Gale crater. Photos released last week and captured in early July.
The panorama above captures the view from this point. Other photos show flat but rocky terrain with a large mountain range as a backdrop.
The researchers say that this place is located in an area containing enriched clay minerals and one full of sulphates. Argillaceous rocks and deposits indicate the presence of water at some point in the past.
More sediment samples will help scientists uncover the history of the land.
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“The rocks here will begin to tell us how this once humid planet turned into today’s dry Mars, and how long habitable environments have persisted even after this has happened,” noted Abigail Fraeman, Associate Scientist for Project Curiosity, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The agency’s Curiosity rover, which has been on Mars since 2012, uses a drill mounted on its arm to make bridges, or holes drilled in rocks that collect geological samples.
As the rover cleared Gale Crater, it is now heading towards Rafael Navarro Mountain, named after a deceased mission scientist, and a peak taller than a four-story building. Over the next two years, Curiosity will revisit the sandstone slope of the Greenhaugh pediment.
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