This dramatic view looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile (5 km) peak at the center of Red Planet’s Gale Crater, was taken on September 9 by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity.
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took this composite image of Mount Sharp on September 9, 2015. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.
In the foreground – approximately two miles (3 km) from Curiosity – is a long ridge rich in a mineral called hematite (Fe2O3), one of several iron oxides.
Just beyond is an undulating plain rich in clay minerals. And just beyond that are a multitude of rounded buttes, all high in sulfate minerals.
The changing mineralogy in these layers of Mount Sharp suggests a changing environment in early Mars, though all involve exposure to water billions of years ago.
Members of the Curiosity science team hope to be able to explore these diverse areas in the years ahead.
Farther back in the image are striking, light-toned cliffs in rock that may have formed in drier times and now are heavily eroded by winds.
The colors in this view are adjusted so that rocks look approximately as they would if they were on Earth, to help scientists interpret the rocks. This ‘white balancing’ to adjust for the lighting on Mars overly compensates for the absence of blue on the planet, making the sky appear light blue and sometimes giving dark, black rocks a blue cast.
The only thing more stunning than this postcard is the “thought that Curiosity will be driving through those lower hills one day,” said Dr Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a scientist for the Curiosity Project.
Curiosity has been working on Mars since August 2012. It reached the base of Mount Sharp last year after fruitfully investigating outcrops closer to its landing site and then trekking to the peak.
The rover is currently on the lower slopes of the mountain in a region covered in sandstone called the Stimson Unit.
