Tag: Murray Buttes

Gale Crater’s small mesas were formed by wind, not liquid water

11:14 am

Route through Murray Buttes
The Murray Buttes. Click to see August 11, 2016 post.

The uncertainty of science: Though Curiosity has found apparent evidence of past liquid water during its early travels on the floor of Gale Crater, scientists have now concluded that the first small mesas and buttes it traveled past back in 2016, dubbed the Murray Buttes, were not formed by the flow of liquid water but by wind reshaping ancient sand dunes. From the press release:
» Read more

2 comments

Murray Buttes panorama by Curiosity released

10:12 am

The Curiosity science team has released a full panorama taken by Curiosity of Murray Buttes prior to its journey through them.

The reason I am not posting this new panorama here on Behind the Black is because I had already posted an almost identical panorama more than a week ago, and my assembled panorama used higher resolution images from Curiosity and was not partly obscured by Curiosity itself. Moreover, I provided better context for that panorama, placing it within Curiosity’s overall travels, something NASA in today’s press release fails to do.

So, if you want to see the best cool images from space and see them sooner than everyone else, why bother reading NASA press releases? Read Behind the Black instead! :)

4 comments

Curiosity prepares to move on

8:44 am

Route through Murray Buttes

After several days of drilling, the Curiosity science team is preparing to move forward. As one member of the team notes,

After a short drive we’ll acquire images for context and targeting. Overnight, Curiosity will complete a SAM electrical baseline test to monitor instrument health. Based on some of the recent Mastcam images that we’ve acquired…, the view ahead should be quite scenic as we drive through the Murray Buttes!

The image above is a close-up of those Buttes, showing Balanced Rock on the left, taken from one of three raw left navigation images. The image below is a panorama I have created from those navigation images, with an inset box to show the location of the above picture.
» Read more

5 comments