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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4589 – 4592: Setting up to explore Volcán Peña Blanca

2025-07-07 23:21

A grayscale photo of a Martian landscape shows very rough, rocky, and cracked terrain

Navcam view of the ~3 ft high ridge that marks the eastern side of Volcán Peña Blanca. The ridge is currently about 35 ft away from the rover, and the team used images like this during today’s planning to decide the exact location for Curiosity’s approach.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Deputy Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Earth planning date: Thursday, July 3, 2025

The team was delighted this morning to learn that Wednesday’s drive had completed flawlessly, placing us in a stable position facing a ~3 foot high ridge located ~35 feet away. This ridge is the eastern edge of a feature the team has informally named “Volcán Peña Blanca.” This feature certainly looked intriguing in orbital images, but once we saw Curiosity’s pictures of it from the ground, we decided it was cool enough to spend the time to investigate it closer. The images from the ground show a lot more detail than is visible in orbit, including clear sedimentary structures exposed along the ridge face which could provide important clues about how the rocks in the boxwork-bearing terrain were initially deposited – dunes? Rivers? Lakes? The team picked their favorite spot to approach the ridge and take a closer look during Wednesday’s planning, so Curiosity made a sharp right turn to take us in that direction. Using today’s images, we refined our plan for the exact location to approach and planned a drive to take us there, setting us up for contact science on Monday.

We had the opportunity to plan four sols today, to cover the U.S. 4^th of July holiday weekend, so there was lots of time for activities besides the drive. Curiosity is currently sitting right in front of some light toned rocks, including one we gave the evocative name “Huellas de Dinosaurios.” It’s extremely unlikely we’ll see dinosaur footprints in the rock, but we will get the chance to investigate it with APXS, MAHLI, and ChemCam. We also have a pair of ChemCam only targets on a more typical bedrock target named “Amboro” and some pebbles named “Tunari.” Mastcam will take a high resolution of mosaic covering Volcán Peña Blanca, some nearby rocks named “Laguna Verde,” a small light colored rock named “Suruto,” and various patterns in the ground. Two ChemCam RMI mosaics of features in the distant Mishe Mokwa face and environment monitoring activities round out the plan.

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Curiosity Blog, Sol 4588: Ridges and troughs

2025-07-07 22:27

A grayscale photo of a Martian landscape shows very rough, rocky, and cracked terrain extending from the foreground to a horizon line in the distance, across the middle of the frame.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4,587 (2025-07-02 07:33:39 UTC).

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Lucy Thompson, APXS Collaborator and Senior Research Scientist at the University of New Brunswick, Canada

Earth planning date: Wednesday, July 2, 2025

As we traverse the boxwork terrain, we are encountering a series of more resistant ridges/bedrock patches, and areas that are more rubbly and tend to form lower relief polygonal or trough-like features. We came into planning this morning in one of the trough-like features after another successful drive. The science team is interested in determining why we see these different geomorphological and erosional expressions. Is the rock that comprises the more resistant ridges and patches a different composition to the rock in the troughs and low relief areas? How do the rocks vary texturally? Might the resistant bedrock be an indicator of what we will encounter when we reach the large boxworks that we are driving towards?

We managed to find a large enough area of rock to safely brush (target – “Guapay”), after which we will place APXS and MAHLI to determine the composition and texture. ChemCam will also analyze a different rock target, “Taltal” for chemistry and texture, and we will also acquire an accompanying Mastcam documentation image. The resistant ridge that we are planning to drive towards (“Volcan Pena Blanca”) and eventually investigate will be captured in a Mastcam mosaic. ChemCam will utilize their long-distance imaging capabilities to image the “Mishe Mokwa” butte off to the southeast of our current location, which likely contains bedrock layers that we will eventually pass through as we continue our climb up Mount Sharp.

After a planned drive, taking us closer to the “Volcan Pena Blanca” ridge, MARDI will image the new terrain beneath the wheels, before we execute some atmospheric observations. Mastcam will make a tau observation to monitor dust in the atmosphere and Navcam will acquire a zenith movie. Standard DAN, RAD and REMS activities round out the plan.

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