Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist on the Smithsonian Nationwide Air and House Museum
Earth planning date: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
As we close to the top of our Altadena drill marketing campaign, Curiosity continued her exploration of the Martian bedrock throughout the boxwork constructions on Mount Sharp. After efficiently delivering a powdered rock pattern to each the CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) and SAM (Pattern Evaluation at Mars) devices, the main focus for sols 4568 and 4569 was to take a more in-depth take a look at the drill gap itself — particularly, the inside partitions of the drill gap and the related tailings (the rock materials pushed out by the drill).
Within the picture above, you’ll be able to see that the tone (or coloration) of the rock uncovered throughout the wall of the drill gap seems to vary barely with depth, and the drill tailings are a mix of wonderful powder and extra strong clumps. When you examine the Altadena drill web site with the 42 drill sites that came before, one can actually recognize the spectacular vary of colours, textures, and grain sizes within the rocks that Curiosity has analyzed over the previous 12 years. Each drill gap marks a window into the previous and will help us perceive how the traditional setting and local weather on Mars advanced over time.
On this two-sol plan, the ChemCam, Mastcam, APXS, and MAHLI devices coordinated their observations to picture and characterize the chemistry of the wall of the drill gap and tailings earlier than we drive away from this web site over the approaching weekend. Exterior of our instant workspace, Mastcam created two stereo mosaics that can picture the boxwork constructions close by in addition to the layers inside Texoli butte. ChemCam assembled three long-distance RMI photos that can assist assess the layers on the base of the “Mishe Mokwa” hill, full the imaging of the close by boxwork constructions, and picture the very distant crater rim (about 90 kilometers, or 56 miles away) and sky to analyze the scattering properties of the ambiance. The environmental theme group included observations that can measure the properties of the ambiance and in addition included a dust-devil survey.