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First 360-Degree Panorama From NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover
“These Navcam images indicate that our powered descent stage did more than give us a great ride, it gave our science team an amazing freebie,” said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the mission from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “The thrust from the rockets actually dug a one-and-a-half-foot-long [0.5 meter] trench in the surface. It appears we can see Martian bedrock on the bottom. Its depth below the surface is valuable data we can use going forward.”
Another image set, courtesy of the Context Camera, or CTX, aboard NASA’s MRO has pinpointed the final resting spots of the six, 55-pound (25-kilogram) entry ballast masses. The tungsten masses impacted the Martian surface at a high speed about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from Curiosity’s landing location.
Wednesday, the team deployed the 3.6 foot-tall (1.1-meter) camera mast, activated and gathered surface radiation data from the rover’s Radiation Assessment Detector and concluded testing of the rover’s high-gain antenna.
Curiosity carries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large as the science payloads on NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instrument for checking rocks’ elemental composition from a distance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover’s analytical laboratory instruments.
Rocket Thrusters Expose Bedrock
This is a close-up view of a zone where the soil at Curiosity’s landing site was blown away by the thrusters on the rover’s descent stage. The excavation of the soil reveals probable bedrock outcrop. This is important because it shows the shallow depth of the soil in this area. The area surrounding the zones of excavation shows abundant small rocks that may form a pavement-like layer above harder bedrock. This full-resolution image was taken by the rover’s Navigation camera.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity’s New Home
These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover’s “head” or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.
The topography of the rim is very mountainous due to erosion. The ground seen in the middle shows low-relief scarps and plains. The foreground shows two distinct zones of excavation likely carved out by blasts from the rover’s descent stage thrusters.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Before and After Curiosity’s Touchdown
These images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show a before-and-after comparison of the area where NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The images were taken by the Context Camera on MRO on Aug. 1 and Aug. 7.
They show the landing effects of the descent stage, the rover lander, the back shell and parachute, and the heat shield, all found on the left side of the image (west of the dune field). On the right side of the image, in a line with the rover and heat shield, are small dark features that very much resemble impact sites seen by the Context Camera elsewhere on Mars. These are interpreted to be the impact sites of the tungsten
The Context Camera took the pictures at a resolution of 20 feet (6 meters) per pixel. The images here are projected at 16 feet (5 meters) per pixel.
The Aug. 7 image was taken at the same time as a post-landing image taken by the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (see PIA16001). The Context Camera image is 20 times lower in resolution but covers an area almost 20 times larger. The wider field of view and longer image permits the Context Camera to perform reconnaissance for higher resolution targets. A Context Camera image is typically about 19 by 171 miles (30 by 275 kilometers) but because the camera was looking at an angle, it covered a swath about 26 by 171 miles (42 by 275 kilometers).
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Looks Away from the Sun
This is the first image taken by the Navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover. It shows the shadow of the rover’s now-upright mast in the center, and the arm’s shadow at left. The arm itself can be seen in the foreground.
The navigation camera is used to help find the sun — information that is needed for locating, and communicating, with Earth. After the camera pointed at the sun, it turned in the opposite direction and took took this picture. The position of the shadow helps confirm the sun’s location. The “augmented reality” or AR tag seen in the foreground can be used in the future with smart phones to obtain more information about the mission.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Gravel-Covered Martian Surface
This full-resolution color image from NASA’s Curiosity Rover shows the gravel-covered surface of Mars. It was taken by the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) several minutes after Curiosity touched down on Mars.
The camera is about 30 inches (70 centimeters) from the surface as the rover sits on the ground. The image pixel scale is about 0.02 inches (0.5 millimeters), but the camera is slightly out of focus at this distance, so the actual ground scale is about 0.06 inches (1.5 millimeters). A sliver of sunlight passing through the structure of the rover illuminates the surface. The largest rock fragment in the image is about 2 inches (5 centimeters) long. Most are much smaller. A rover wheel is visible at the top left.
This is the 1,008th image that MARDI took. The original image from MARDI has been geometrically corrected to look MARDI took. The original image from MARDI has been geometrically corrected to look flat. Curiosity landed inside of a crater known as Gale Crater.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
To handle this science toolkit, Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. The Gale Crater landing site places the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater’s interior mountain. Observations from orbit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower layers, indicating a wet history.
MRO’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is operated by the University of Arizona in Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Exploration Rover projects are managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter.
For more about NASA’s Curiosity mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mars
and http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msl
black and white photos? seriously?
Needs a lens wipe. (joking)