lfenton
August 13, 2012
A piece of Gale crater, Mars (Aug. 13, 2012): Here is the wall of a large ravine cut into Mt. Sharp, the mountain of layered and eroded sediments that Curiosity will climb. Long ago, this ravine was cut by water, […]
August 11, 2012
A piece of Gale crater, Mars (Aug 11, 2012): This is a tiny portion of the ancient river channel that Curiosity will use to climb up Mt. Sharp in the coming year. It’s a fascinating place, full of pale fractured […]
August 10, 2012
A piece of Gale crater, Mars: These are rocks on Mount Sharp, where the Curiosity rover will be headed in the coming months. Like many of the surfaces in Gale crater, these have been streamlined by sandblasting over the eons. […]
August 6, 2012
A piece of Mars: Last night I said it couldn’t be done. But here it is, a HiRISE image of Curiosity descending towards its landing spot in Gale crater. From this image it has been determined that Curiosity landed a […]
August 3, 2012
A piece of Mars: Compare this with my post five days ago and you might think the scenes are similar. In fact they’re not. In the previous case sedimentary layers were carved out by the wind, leaving behind swirly patterns […]
July 30, 2012
A piece of Mars: Bright dunes once marched through the depression created by a double impact. How can you tell the dunes are no longer moving? Because one of them has its own little crater sitting on it. A mobile […]
July 29, 2012
A piece of Mars: When the wind sandblasts at layered rocks, some pretty swirly patterns emerge. These are flat layers that take on a stacked wedding-cake appearance on an outcrop elongated by the wind. The direction of the stacks indicates […]
July 26, 2012
A piece of Mars: Wind streaks are a common sight on Mars. They are formed either by the wind blowing stuff away or blowing stuff in, and it can be quite difficult to tell which is which. In this case, […]
July 16, 2012
A piece of Mars: Most of the image, stretching beyond the edges of this frame, shows a bland gray landscape of lava blanketed in dust. But one small patch of blue shows where sand is still actively moving and piling […]