Curiosity Takes One Final Postcard Image of a Picturesque Valley Before Moving on to its Next Destination - by spacewriter
What’s amazing about this view of the valley is how clear the air is. Normally there’s quite a bit of dust in the Martian air. However, since the region where Curiosity is exploring is now experiencing winter, there’s less dust in the atmosphere. The clearer view allowed the cams to see a very distant mountain outside the rim of the crater.Curosity’s afternoon view taken by the navigation cam.
These two images above also show how much the view can change depending on the time of day, according to Curiosity engineer Doug Ellison. By capturing two 7.5-minute-long panoramas at two different times of day, the scene shows dramatic shadows similar to stage lighting coming in from the left and right of center stage. “Anyone who’s been to a national park knows the scene looks different in the morning than it does in the afternoon,” he said.
So, what features do we see in this combined image? Marker Band Valley lies dead center. The big hill to the far right is called Chenapau. Several smaller hills called Amapa, Bolivar, and Deepdale lie farther away. Beyond that is the rim of the crater, and that distant mountain is 87 kilometers outside of the crater.
Annotated image showing surface features and visible parts of the Mars Curiosity Rover. Courtesy: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe rover continues its climb up Mount Sharp, heading roughly east from its last position. It’s doing ChemCam observations before heading on another drive. The Mastcam is studying a lumpy, layered rock called “Ananas Berg” and those images will get added to a large inventory of rock features and terrain along the rover’s route.
The area Curiosity is traveling through has been pretty challenging. There are steep slopes, uneven regions of bedrock, and lots of fine-grained sand. Mission planners chose a route that takes the rover up through the area and will eventually put it onto some flatter ground.
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