Author Topic: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread  (Read 1026520 times)

Offline SaxtonHale

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1160 on: 02/22/2014 07:27 pm »
Opportunity wouldn't have made it to Endeavour with that attitude.

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1161 on: 02/23/2014 05:20 am »
Opportunity wouldn't have made it to Endeavour with that attitude.

Opportunity examined many targets of interest on the way to Endeavour. 

Between the landing site at Eagle crater and Endurance Opportunity stopped at Fram crater.

Between Endurance and Victoria Opportunity examined its' own heat shield and heat shield rock (a meteorite), and Vostok (including the Gagarin rock and Laika soil), Erebus (including the Payson and Olympia Ridge outcrops) and Beagle craters.

Between Victoria and Endeavour Opportunity examined two more meteorites, Block Island and Shelter Island. Other features studied included the rocks Santorini, Penrhyn, and Marquette Island, the craters Concepcion and Santa Maria, and many others.
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline robertross

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1162 on: 02/27/2014 11:23 pm »
02.27.2014
Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Views Striated Ground

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has reached an area where orbital images had piqued researchers' interest in patches of ground with striations all oriented in a similar direction.
A close-up look at some of the striations from the rover's Navigation Camera gains extra drama by including Mount Sharp in the background. The lower slopes of that layered mountain are the mission's long-term science destination. The image is online at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA17947

The foreground rocks are in an outcrop called "Junda," which the rover passed during a drive of 328 feet (100 meters) on Feb. 19. It paused during the drive to take the component images of the scene, then finished the day's drive. A location still ahead, called "Kimberley," where researchers plan to suspend driving for a period of science investigations, also features ground with striations.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about Curiosity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. You can follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1607

edit to add: the link has a nice zoom feature for this image
« Last Edit: 02/27/2014 11:26 pm by robertross »

Offline robertross

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1163 on: 02/27/2014 11:25 pm »
02.27.2014
Curiosity's View Back After Passing 'Junda' Striations 

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on its mast for this look back after finishing a drive of 328 feet (100 meters) on the 548th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars (Feb. 19, 2014). The rows of rocks just to the right of the fresh wheel tracks in this view are an outcrop called "Junda." The rows form striations on the ground, a characteristic seen in some images of this area taken from orbit. A panorama made from Navcam images taken during a pause to observe Junda partway through the Sol 548 drive is available as PIA17947 (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17947).

For scale, the distance between Curiosity's parallel wheel tracks is about 9 feet (2.7 meters). This view is looking toward the east-northeast.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=6031

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1164 on: 03/01/2014 02:18 am »
"Striation" is a bad name for this feature, as they are clearly bedding outcrops.  Geologically striations are very different things.  Very poor journalism.
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended


Offline Kaputnik

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"I don't care what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do"- Gene Kranz

Offline aero

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1167 on: 03/09/2014 05:31 pm »
No, right rover, wrong thread.
Retired, working interesting problems

Offline Bubbinski

Curiosity is now at Kimberley, next to the outcrop.  The raw images are pretty spectacular, love the forward hazcam views.  Contact science is about to start as per this:

http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/news/astrogeology/sol-583-update-on-curiosity-from-usgs-scientist-ken-herkenhoff-in-a-good-position
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1169 on: 03/30/2014 10:36 am »
-A- magnificent desolation.
http://www.universetoday.com/110814/an-afternoon-on-mars/
"An Afternoon on Mars. Mosaic panorama of MSL Mastcam images acquired on mission Sol 582 (March 27, 2014). Post-processing included bad pixel cleanup, HDR toning and some image cloning along lower right edge. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Composite by Jason Major."

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1170 on: 03/31/2014 12:45 pm »
Heh, I always thought this about a (truly hypothetical) lunar civilization (just as a thought exercise) - they'd be seeing a motionless Earth hanging in the sky, yet rotating in place, and with varying illumination.  How cool is that?  To figure out that it is indeed rotating, but you're rotating with it!   It's like the universe is conspiring to make it difficult to figure out what's really going on...

Interesting sidetrack.

In addition, those moonies would see the Sun with the naked eye, and would have to realize that it illuminates both celestial bodies.

Backing up to the naked eye visibility of Luna from the surface of Mars.  If they could do that, they'd also be able to see some of Jupiter's moons with the naked eye.

[Edit 04-02-14:  Also, I've always understood the 55mm film camera lens to be roughly equivalent to the human eye.  This would imply that's all the camera capability one would require to see the Earth/Moon system from the surface of Mars.]
« Last Edit: 04/02/2014 12:26 pm by JohnFornaro »
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline eeergo

Just read the following tweet from Emily Lakdawalla:

Quote
RT @marssciencegrad: Can't quite articulate why yet, but this is one of my very favorite images from MSL yet. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00585/opgs/edr/ncam/NRB_449442371EDR_F0300786NCAM00320M_.JPG

And I must agree, there are probably other similar pictures out there, but I found this photo unique too, with its mixture of the broken sturdy-looking rock with the mechanical arm lightly touching it, sophisticated and alien yet eeriely antropomorphic in that setup, coupled with the organic and slightly mysterious appearence of the sand and strata below and the clearer jumble outcrop above.
-DaviD-

Offline yg1968

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« Last Edit: 05/03/2014 02:44 pm by yg1968 »

Offline JosephB

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1173 on: 05/03/2014 02:00 pm »
Incredibly cool panorama:
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/curiosity-panorama-dirty/?cid=social_20140501_23040794

Wow! That is an understatement.
Great viewing in full screen on the host site.
Wouldn't it be nice to have her perched somewhere atop Valles Marineris?
Thanks for sharing YG.

Offline bolun

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1174 on: 05/07/2014 10:55 am »
Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover drills for rock sample

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27298907

Offline robertross

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1175 on: 05/10/2014 09:47 pm »
Sorry for not providing my normal coverage of the robot I love. I'm involved in renos that are taking their toll...

05.06.2014
Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
NASA's Curiosity Rover Drills Sandstone Slab on Mars

Portions of rock powder collected by the hammering drill on NASA's Curiosity Mars from a slab of Martian  sandstone will be delivered to the rover's internal instruments.
Rover team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., received confirmation early today (Tuesday) of Curiosity's third successful acquisition of a drilled rock sample, following the drilling Monday evening (PDT). The fresh hole in the rock target "Windjana," visible in images from the rover, is 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) in diameter and about 2.6 inches (6.5 centimeters) deep.

The full-depth hole for sample collection is close to a shallower test hole drilled last week in the same rock, which gave researchers a preview of the interior material as tailings around the hole.

"The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites," said Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam). "This suggests that the detailed chemical and mineral analysis that will be coming from Curiosity's other instruments could reveal different materials than we've seen before. We can't wait to find out!"

The mission's two previous rock-drilling sites, at mudstone targets in the Yellowknife Bay area, yielded evidence last year of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that long ago provided conditions favorable for microbial life. The rover's current location is at a waypoint called "The Kimberley," about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) southwest of Yellowknife Bay, and along the route toward the mission's long-term destination on lower slopes of Mount Sharp.

Sample material from Windjana will be sieved, then delivered in coming days to onboard laboratories for determining the mineral and chemical composition: the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) and the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument (SAM). The analysis of the sample may continue as the rover drives on from The Kimberley toward Mount Sharp. One motive for the team's selection of Windjana for drilling is to analyze the cementing material that holds together sand-size grains in this sandstone.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1633

Offline robertross

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1176 on: 05/16/2014 02:19 am »
05.15.2014
NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Wrapping Up Waypoint Work

Portions of powdered rock collected by drilling into a sandstone target last week have been delivered to laboratory instruments inside NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, and the rover will soon drive on toward its long-term destination on a mountain slope.
Other instruments on the rover have inspected the rock's interior exposed in the hole and in drill cuttings heaped around the hole. The target rock, "Windjana," is a sandstone slab within a science waypoint area called "The Kimberley."

The camera and spectrometer at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm examined the texture and composition of the cuttings. The instrument that fires a laser from atop the rover's mast zapped a series of points inside the hole with sharpshooter accuracy.

The rover team has decided not to drill any other rock target at this waypoint. In coming days, Curiosity will resume driving toward Mount Sharp, the layered mountain at the middle of Mars' Gale Crater. The rover is carrying with it some of the powdered sample material from Windjana that can be delivered for additional internal laboratory analysis during pauses in the drive.

The mission's two previous rock-drilling sites, at mudstone targets, yielded evidence last year of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that long ago provided conditions favorable for microbial life.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1634

Offline JosephB

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Offline jacqmans

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1178 on: 06/23/2014 06:29 pm »

June 23, 2014

NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover Marks First Martian Year with Mission Successes


NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover will complete a Martian year -- 687 Earth days -- on June 24, having accomplished the mission's main goal of determining whether Mars once offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

One of Curiosity's first major findings after landing on the Red Planet in August 2012 was an ancient riverbed at its landing site. Nearby, at an area known as Yellowknife Bay, the mission met its main goal of determining whether the Martian Gale Crater ever was habitable for simple life forms. The answer, a historic "yes," came from two mudstone slabs that the rover sampled with its drill. Analysis of these samples revealed the site was once a lakebed with mild water, the essential elemental ingredients for life, and a type of chemical energy source used by some microbes on Earth. If Mars had living organisms, this would have been a good home for them.

Other important findings during the first Martian year include:

-- Assessing natural radiation levels both during the flight to Mars and on the Martian surface provides guidance for designing the protection needed for human missions to Mars.

-- Measurements of heavy-versus-light variants of elements in the Martian atmosphere indicate that much of Mars' early atmosphere disappeared by processes favoring loss of lighter atoms, such as from the top of the atmosphere. Other measurements found that the atmosphere holds very little, if any, methane, a gas that can be produced biologically.

-- The first determinations of the age of a rock on Mars and how long a rock has been exposed to harmful radiation provide prospects for learning when water flowed and for assessing degradation rates of organic compounds in rocks and soils.

Curiosity paused in driving this spring to drill and collect a sample from a sandstone site called Windjana. The rover currently is carrying some of the rock-powder sample collected at the site for follow-up analysis.

"Windjana has more magnetite than previous samples we've analyzed," said David Blake, principal investigator for Curiosity's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California.  "A key question is whether this magnetite is a component of the original basalt or resulted from later processes, such as would happen in water-soaked basaltic sediments. The answer is important to our understanding of habitability and the nature of the early-Mars environment."

Preliminary indications are that the rock contains a more diverse mix of clay minerals than was found in the mission's only previously drilled rocks, the mudstone targets at Yellowknife Bay. Windjana also contains an unexpectedly high amount of the mineral orthoclase, This is a potassium-rich feldspar that is one of the most abundant minerals in Earth's crust that had never before been definitively detected on Mars.

This finding implies that some rocks on the Gale Crater rim, from which the Windjana sandstones are thought to have been derived, may have experienced complex geological processing, such as multiple episodes of melting.

"It's too early for conclusions, but we expect the results to help us connect what we learned at Yellowknife Bay to what we'll learn at Mount Sharp," said John Grotzinger, Curiosity Project Scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Windjana is still within an area where a river flowed. We see signs of a complex history of interaction between water and rock."

Curiosity departed Windjana in mid-May and is advancing westward. It has covered about nine-tenths of a mile (1.5 kilometers) in 23 driving days and brought the mission's odometer tally up to 4.9 miles (7.9 kilometers).

Since wheel damage prompted a slow-down in driving late in 2013, the mission team has adjusted routes and driving methods to reduce the rate of damage.

For example, the mission team revised the planned route to future destinations on the lower slope of an area called Mount Sharp, where scientists expect geological layering will yield answers about ancient environments. Before Curiosity landed, scientists anticipated that the rover would need to reach Mount Sharp to meet the goal of determining whether the ancient environment was favorable for life. They found an answer much closer to the landing site. The findings so far have raised the bar for the work ahead. At Mount Sharp, the mission team will seek evidence not only of habitability, but also of how environments evolved and what conditions favored preservation of clues to whether life existed there.

The entry gate to the mountain is a gap in a band of dunes edging the mountain's northern flank that is approximately 2.4 miles (3.9 kilometers) ahead of the rover's current location. The new path will take Curiosity across sandy patches as well as rockier ground. Terrain mapping with use of imaging from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enables the charting of safer, though longer, routes.

The team expects its will need to continually adapt to the threats posed by the terrain to the rover's wheels but does not expect this will be a determining factor in the length of Curiosity's operational life.

"We are getting in some long drives using what we have learned," said Jim Erickson, Curiosity Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "When you're exploring another planet, you expect surprises.  The sharp, embedded rocks were a bad surprise. Yellowknife Bay was a good surprise."

JPL manages NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, and built the project's Curiosity rover.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

and

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

You can follow the mission on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

and on Twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity.
Jacques :-)

Offline catdlr

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Re: LIVE: MSL Curiosity Post Landing SOL 1 onwards Update Thread
« Reply #1179 on: 06/23/2014 08:00 pm »
How Does Curiosity Take A 'Selfie'? - Martian Year Report Video

On June 24, 2014, NASA's Curiosity rover completes her first Martian year (687 Earth days). Hear team members describe how the mission accomplished its main goal to find a past habitable environment on the Red Planet and the ongoing science studies.


« Last Edit: 06/23/2014 08:01 pm by catdlr »
Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

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