jbridges
Subscribe to jbridges's posts4th March 2014 Sol 560
This striking image is a mosaic of navigation camera images, at Junda outcrop with Mt. Sharp in the background. Junda is a place in W. Australia, which is where we are taking our locality names from in this part of our traverse. We are setting some records for driving distance, having recently done 100 m […]
24th February 2014 Sol 552
We have succesfully passed through Dingo Gap, and this NavCam image shows the rearward view, where we have driven over the dune. Its is also a great view of the the Multi Mission Radio Isotope Thermal Generator (RTG) with its cooling fins on Curiosity. When designing Curiosity, the Engineers decided that an RTG would provide more […]
17th February 2014 Sol 545
As we approach a full martian year (669 sols) we have travelled about 5 km. There is fine tuning to be done on the route to get us relatively quickly to the clay and iron oxide concentrations in Mt. Sharp, but try and minimise wear on the wheels. The Opportunity Rover has travelled over 35 […]
7th February 2014 Sol 537
We now have a wide view of Dingo Gap, our route, over a dune in the foreground, and towards Mt. Sharp. This image is a mosaic of MastCam photos. The centre of the valley points west. As we head in this direction we aim to do some ‘touch and go’ observations of the rocks. The stratigraphy […]
1st February 2014 Sol 530
We have encountered a new sort of landscape, our first sand dune, at a locality we call Dingo Gap. We will soon see a lot more of these in time as we traverse across to Mt. Sharp. This shape is similar to what we call barchan dunes, and shows a wind direction from left to right […]
24th January 2014 Sol 522
The Science Magazine papers about Yellowknife Bay have just been published: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current Looking back at this work what strikes me is how far Mars research has progressed in the last few years. As I was saying at talk at a local community college last night, our view of Mars keeps changing as our imaging improves. […]
19th January 2014 Sol 517
On Earth rocks that are as ancient as those we are studying on Mars have been destroyed by the tectonic recycling process or heavily metamorphosed. Outcrops like this Harrison outcrop have escaped high temperature and pressure alteration and so have preserved their original mineralogy and textures. The clast arrowed in the middle of the field […]
10th January 2014 Sol 509
The HiRISE camera on Mars Reconaissance Orbiter keeps an eye on our progress, sending back photos every few months. A recently captured image taken on December 11th, shows the tracks and rover as we pick our way around impact craters and their boulder fields.
8th January 2014 Sol 506
Its Stargazing Live at University of Leicester today. I am giving one of the talks about Curiosity and what we have achieved already, and what we hope to do in the coming months, when we will reach 1 martian year. However, we need to balance science, speed and caution. Curiosity’s wheels have a little wear […]
5th January 2014 Sol 503
After the break over the holidays we are back analysing and driving. It is small drives so far. We will also be keeping an eye on the wear and tear of the wheels with MAHLI images in particular, driving a 1 tonne rover over sharp, hard rocks must have some effect over time. This year […]
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