He Increased Rover Curiosity He has sent to Earth a new Marte video that is simply a jewel: an immersive panoramic view of 30 seconds that transports us directly to the slopes of Mount Sharp. Look at it full screen because this is the closest thing to a walk on the red planet that we will have until Elon Musk puts the starship flights at the balance price.
A family world. At first glance, the images captured by NASA’s rover last February could remind us of a desert landscape in Chile or the southwest United States. But do not deceive your eyes: that “saw” that is seen in the distance is actually the edge of the gigantic Gale crater, formed by the impact of an asteroid billions of years ago.
Curiosity, a rolling laboratory to the size of a mini cooperation, was then ascending on the slopes of Mount Sharp, an imposing mountain of almost 5 kilometers of height sculpted by the time inside the crater itself. Since its arrival in 2012, the Curiosity Rover has traveled about 32 kilometers on the dusty Martian land, exploring the Gale Crater without rest.
What we are seeing. The area where these images were taken, formally known as “sulfate carrier unit”, is full of saline minerals. Scientists believe that these minerals are the legacy of streams and ponds that dried eones, before Mars went from being a world potentially similar to Earth to the ice cream desert we know today.
NASA invites us to get carried away by imagination: “You can imagine the silent and dim wind, or perhaps even the waves of a disappeared lake have long licking an old shore.”
Rumbo to new mysteries. Although it has been on Mars for almost 13 years, the Curiosity expedition does not stop here. Left behind the Gediz Vallis channel, where about a year ago accidentally discovered elementary sulfur (A disconcerting finding, since on Earth it is usually associated with volcanic gases or bacterial activity). And now he is now heading towards a region with some intriguing geological formations called “Boxwork”.
These structures, seen from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter orbiter, seem like a kind of spider web, with ridges extending for several kilometers that will probably need warm groundwater to form. And where there is water, it is already known, there is potential to find past life clues. The researchers wonder If you are “Boxwork” They could have housed old unicellular microorganisms and have sent the Curiosity Rover to find out.
The Curiosity Rover seen from above for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe
Another point of view. While Curiosity covers these long journeys on the Martian surface, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Follow it from above. On February 28, the Hirise Chamber of the ship captured the first orbital image of the rover in full displacement by the red planet
In the image, Curiosity appears as a dark mota in front of a long trace of fingerprints that extend about 320 meters. Curiosity’s footprints can remain visible for months before the Martian wind erases them.
Images | POT
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