Gale crater

December 27, 2018

Wind at the Mars InSight landing site

InSight landed in Elysium Planitia on 26 November, 2018, about a month ago as of this writing. Pictures show that it’s a flat place, with small scattered rocks lying around. Unlike in Gale crater, where Curiosity is slowly working its […]
May 1, 2017

Curiosity, recovering from the Bagnold dunes campaign

A Piece of Mars: You’ll probably want to click on this image to see the whole thing, it’s pretty big, and it’s worth seeing. This 850×550 m (0.53×0.34 mi) scene shows the barchanoid dunes of the Bagnold dune field, imperceptibly […]
January 3, 2017

Crater ejecta on old ripples

A Piece of Mars: Mars rarely does anything without drama. Long ago in this 0.96×0.54 km (0.6×0.34 mi) scene, large ripples formed and then, presumably, lithified (turned into rock). Some time after that, an impact formed the crater in the […]
November 7, 2016

Dunes and rock hurdles in Gale crater (3D)

A Piece of Mars: Wind from the upper left is blowing dark dunes toward the lower right in this 1.92×1.08 km (1.19×0.67 mi) anaglyph (if you don’t have your red/blue 3D glasses handy, you can also check out the black […]
December 21, 2015

Curiosity about sand dunes (part 2/2)

Today is December 21, 2015 (northern winter and southern summer solstice on Earth). On Mars it is Ls = 84º, Mars Year 33 (about 12 sols from northern summer and southern winter solstice on Mars). It is sol 1200 of […]
December 14, 2015

Curiosity about sand dunes (part 1/2)

Sorry for the pun in the title there, but NASA asked for it by naming their rover like that. And you’ve seen it done a hundred times, so let’s grit our teeth, smile, and carry on. Anyway. So I’m more […]
July 1, 2014

Where is Curiosity on her 1 Mars year anniversary?

A piece of Mars: Curiosity has been trolling around on Mars for one martian year, so I think it’s time I posted an update on where it is and what it’s seeing. Right now (late June 2014), the rover is […]
May 2, 2013

Dunes on crater bones

A piece of Mars. The dark circle (~170 m across) in the middle of the picture is the interior of what used to be a crater. It’s now almost completely eroded away, probably by the wind. Small dunes have formed […]
September 25, 2012

Winds in Gale crater, ancient and young

A piece of Gale crater, Mars: Cream-colored ripples wind their way through rough terrain. Looking more closely, the rocky surface seems to be made of highly eroded parallel ridges that are nearly perpendicular to most of the ripples. These ridges […]