Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Hello, Curiosity: UA's HiRISE Camera Snaps Photo of Little Mars Robot

Posted By on Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 2:30 PM


The UA HiRISE camera in orbit around Mars has snapped a photo of the Curiosity rover as it makes its way around Gale Crater. It's the teeny-tiny dot in the center of the above photo.

The HiRISE Team tells us:

Here we see the rover parked over dark sand in a valley bounded by light-toned rock outcrops. These rocks make up the “Pahrump” member of the Murray Formation, a suite of sandstones, siltstones, and calcium sulfate veins that compose the lowermost exposed rocks of Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons) in Gale Crater. This image also addresses several objectives besides keeping track of the rover location, such as the monitoring of nearby active sand dunes and the degree to which rover tracks are preserved on the underlying terrain. Unlike other regions of for which Curiosity has traversed, here the rover tracks are not apparent, likely because the disturbed, underlying, dark sand is similar in tone to that on the surface.