Curiosity under the shadow of a Martian mountain
Click for full resolution. For original images, go here and here.
Click for interactive map
Another cool image to start the week! The panorama above was created using two navigation images taken by Curiosity on August 8, 2023. It looks almost due west at the dramatic western wall of 400-foot-high Kukenan butte.
The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Curiosity’s present location. The yellow lines indicate approximately the area covered by the panorama above. The red dotted line indicates the rover’s planned route.
Recently JPL issued a press release touting the efforts of its engineers to overcome the very steep and rocky terrain that Curiosity is presently traversing, an effort that I have documented repeated in the past few months (see posts here and here). They had been trying to send Curiosity straight up the mountain, to no success, and finally decided to do what every hiker and trail-maker does routinely, do back and forth switchbacks to reduce the grade per step.
In June they headed slowly uphill going east. In July they turned back and worked their way uphill going west, heading back to the Jau crater complex to get a quick look at these craters, then turned again in August to head back east, slowly working uphill along the contour lines. As they do this the rover is moving closer and closer to Kukenan, the largest butte so far studied in the foothills of Mount Sharp.
This panorama is one of the best illustrations of the very complex geological history of Mars. Each layer signals a past cycle in Mars’ very cyclic history, created because of the red planet’s wide swings of rotational tilt over time. Once underground, these layers have become exposed because erosion over the eons has slowly removed the material that once buried it, leaving the butte behind.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for full resolution. For original images, go here and here.
Click for interactive map
Another cool image to start the week! The panorama above was created using two navigation images taken by Curiosity on August 8, 2023. It looks almost due west at the dramatic western wall of 400-foot-high Kukenan butte.
The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Curiosity’s present location. The yellow lines indicate approximately the area covered by the panorama above. The red dotted line indicates the rover’s planned route.
Recently JPL issued a press release touting the efforts of its engineers to overcome the very steep and rocky terrain that Curiosity is presently traversing, an effort that I have documented repeated in the past few months (see posts here and here). They had been trying to send Curiosity straight up the mountain, to no success, and finally decided to do what every hiker and trail-maker does routinely, do back and forth switchbacks to reduce the grade per step.
In June they headed slowly uphill going east. In July they turned back and worked their way uphill going west, heading back to the Jau crater complex to get a quick look at these craters, then turned again in August to head back east, slowly working uphill along the contour lines. As they do this the rover is moving closer and closer to Kukenan, the largest butte so far studied in the foothills of Mount Sharp.
This panorama is one of the best illustrations of the very complex geological history of Mars. Each layer signals a past cycle in Mars’ very cyclic history, created because of the red planet’s wide swings of rotational tilt over time. Once underground, these layers have become exposed because erosion over the eons has slowly removed the material that once buried it, leaving the butte behind.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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