25 October 2018
Sols 2211-2212: Getting Back into the Science Swing of Things!
While we are working toward understanding and recovering from the anomaly, Curiosity is slowly ramping back up into normal science operations.
22 October 2018
Recap of the Bagnold Dune Investigation
As Curiosity continues on her journey up Mount Sharp (the mound in the centre of Gale crater), rocks we encounter contain evidence for changing environmental conditions. The fine-grained mudstones of the Murray formation show us that lakes were present in the past, whilst the sandstones of the Stimson formation are evidence for ancient dune fields.
20 October 2018
Sol 2204: Curiosity science is baaaack!
Contrary to the ‘frightening’ title, the Curiosity team is excited that science operations are starting to resume! The real fright was when Curiosity had an anomaly on Sol 2172 which affected its memory.
8 October 2018
Crystal Balls May Show the Future, but Gypsum Crystals Tell Us About the Past
Some interesting features we’ve seen on Vera Rubin Ridge are small ‘swallowtail crystals’ often associated with the boundary between gray and red rocks on the ridge top. In thinking about these features…
4 October 2018
Geology – It’s like Investigating a Crime Scene
Sometimes planetary geology is like forensics. We are presented with a crime scene: Something broke down the original igneous rock, and made all those clays, veins and hematite nodules.
19 September 2018
Sols 2175-2176: Tell Us More, We Want to Help!
Over the past few days, engineers here at JPL have been working to address an issue on Curiosity that is preventing it from sending much of the science and engineering data stored in its memory. The rover remains in its normal mode and is otherwise healthy and responsive.
17 September 2018
Sols 2172-2174: Who’d Have Thought That Ridge Rocks Could Be So Hard
Last night we learned that our drill attempt on ‘Inverness’ was not successful, reaching only 4 mm into the rock. Today’s tactical team bounced back from this news and quickly assembled a plan to move on.
15 September 2018
Sols 2170-2171: Go for Drill at Inverness!
Although drill campaigns can take up to two weeks to complete, we are starting to look ahead, thinking of our next potential drill site. Mastcam multispectral images taken on sol 2171 will be used to help us decide which direction to head in next!
11 September 2018
Sols 2168-2169: Starting the drill campaign at "Inverness"
In the weekend plan Curiosity drove to an area that the team thought would be a good location for the next drill site on Vera Rubin Ridge. The drive was a success, and there is a block named ‘Inverness’ in the center of the workspace that was selected to be the next drill target.
9 September 2018
Sol 2165 – 2167: It always looks grayer on the other side!
Curiosity’s last plan didn’t quite get our intrepid rover close enough to our next potential drill location in the gray bedrock that is visually distinct on this part of Vera Rubin Ridge.
