Earth planning date: Friday, Sept. 5, 2025
Curiosity is within the midst of the boxwork marketing campaign, making an attempt to decipher why we see such pronounced ridges and hollows on this space of Mount Sharp. When this terrain was first recognized from orbit it was hypothesized that the ridges could also be the results of cementation by circulating fluids, adopted by differential erosion of the much less resistant bedrock in between (the hollows that we now observe).
We now have been exploring the boxwork terrain documenting textures, buildings and composition to analyze potential variations between ridges and hollows. One of many textural options we’ve got noticed are nodules in various abundance. The main focus of our actions this week was to doc the transition from smoother bedrock atop a boxwork ridge to extra nodular bedrock related to the sting of a shallow hole.
In Tuesday’s three-sol plan we analyzed the smoother bedrock inside the ridge, documenting textures with MAHLI, Mastcam, and ChemCam RMI, and chemistry with ChemCam LIBS and APXS. Curiosity then efficiently bumped in the direction of the sting of the ridge/hole to position the extra nodular bedrock in our workspace. Friday’s three-sol plan was mainly a repeat of the earlier observations, however this time targeted on the extra nodular bedrock. The deliberate drive ought to take us to a different boxwork ridge, and nearer to the world the place we plan to drill into one of many ridges.
Because the APXS strategic planner this week, I helped to pick the rock targets for evaluation by our instrument, guaranteeing they have been secure to the touch and that they met the science intent of the boxwork marketing campaign. I additionally communicated to the remainder of the workforce the newest outcomes from our APXS compositional analyses and the way they match into our investigation of the boxwork terrain. This may assist to tell our fast-approaching determination about the place to drill.
Each plans included Mastcam and ChemCam long-distance RMI imaging of extra distant options, together with different boxwork ridges and hollows, buttes, the yardang unit, and Gale crater rim. Deliberate environmental actions proceed to observe mud within the environment, dust-devil exercise, and clouds. Customary REMS, RAD, and DAN actions spherical out the week’s actions.
Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Scientist and APXS Staff Member, College of New Brunswick, Canada.
