Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Venture Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.
At present was a really big day for Curiosity because the rover celebrated the beginning of a 14th yr on Mars. Curiosity is at the moment exploring the mysterious boxwork formations. On Monday, the rover positioned itself in conjunction with one of many ridges, the place the staff had noticed tantalizing hints of a posh community of razor-thin veins which will give perception into what’s holding the ridges up, in comparison with the surrounding hollows.
On this plan, the staff will use the devices on Curiosity’s arm and mast to analyze the geometry and composition of those veins to be taught extra about them. APXS and MAHLI will each observe “Repechón,” a free block with dark-toned, mottled materials uncovered on high, in addition to “Lago Poopó,” a vivid, comparatively clear vein community. MAHLI will even gather a facet view of “Repechón.” ChemCam will use its laser to investigate two targets, “Vicguna,” a protruding vein edge with nodular texture, and “Ibare,” which has some uncovered light-toned veins. Outdoors of the vein investigation, ChemCam’s telescopic RMI digicam will observe layering in a close-by butte and the Mishe Mokwa function, whereas Mastcam will take mosaics on “Cachiniba,” a damaged block, “Yapacani,” the facet of one other massive boxwork ridge, and “Llullaillaco,” a faraway function that we imaged from a barely completely different location in a earlier plan. Extra environmental monitoring observations will spherical out the plan, adopted by a straight-line drive to the east, to an space the place a number of massive boxwork ridges intersect that the staff has been informally calling “the peace signal” due to its form.
I normally get nostalgic round touchdown anniversaries, or “landiversaries,” and this yr, I discovered myself wanting again via footage of touchdown evening. Considered one of my favorites exhibits me standing subsequent to science staff member Kirsten Siebach proper after we acquired the first images from Curiosity. The 2 of us have the largest, most excited grins on our faces. We had been each graduate college students on the time, and each of us had been writing thesis chapters analyzing orbital knowledge over areas we hoped to discover with Curiosity at some point. I used to be learning a layer in Mount Sharp that contained hematite, and the staff named this function “Vera Rubin ridge” when Curiosity reached it in 2017. Kirsten, who’s now a professor at Rice College, was targeted on the boxwork buildings, pondering how they shaped and hypothesizing what they could inform us concerning the historical past of Martian habitability after we reached them.
13 years later, I had one other huge grin on my face at present, as I listened to Kirsten and our unimaginable science staff members excitedly discussing Curiosity’s new photos of those similar boxwork buildings. I used to be additionally full of gratitude for the hundreds of individuals it took to get us to this second. It was the best possible solution to spend a landiversary.