(Image: Wikimedia Commons)
This artist’s concept features NASA’s Curiosity Science Laboratory rover, a mobile robot for studying Mars ’past or present ability to sustain microbial life.
It has been 3,000 Martian days or sols since the Curiosity rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012. A NASA rover was sent out to find out about the red planet, in particular its gradual climb up the 3 -mile-high (5-kilometer-) high) Mount Sharp mountain that it has been exploring since 2014.
But as the Curiosity rover climbed Mount Sharp, it has discovered similar rock formations and taken a panoramic view on November 18, 2020.
Day 3000 Curiosity Rover on Mars
(Photo: NASA)
This panorama, made up of 122 individual images stitched together, was taken by NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover on November 18, 2020, the 2,946th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a panoramic view of Mars captured by the Curiosity rover’s Mast Camera, or MastCam, which is the rover’s main eye. The scientists shaken 122 images together on November 18 last year on the 2,946th sol of the Curiosity Rover mission.
At the center of the panorama is the floor of Gale Crater, the 96-mile-wide bowl in Mount Sharp. It also shows the northern edge of the crater on the horizon, and to the right is the upper part of Mount Sharp which has layers of rock that scientists thought were formed by stream ad lakes billions of years ago when which is still water on the red planet.
According to Phys.org, the curved rock bars defined the rock layers on the slope. The harder layers of the smaller cliffs were formed when the softer layers of rock eroded, leaving bench-like shapes.
In addition, these can occur in landslides when large curved slabs of bedrock slide downhill. Astronauts have already seen similar benches before the Gale Crater, but said such a beautiful group of steps is rare.
“Our science team is excited to find out how they created and what they mean for the ancient environment inside Gale,” said Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). in Southern California, the scientist of the Curiosity Rover project, JPL built and directed the Curiosity rover.
HOW MUCH: NASA invites humans to explore Mars through images taken by the Curiosity Rover to train their AI algorithm
In honor of Mary Anning
After taking the panorama at Mount Sharp, the Curiosity rover is off the higher ground. In 2020, the Curiosity rover also moved over the area with a clay called Glen Torridon and at the stop of the crater called “Mary Anning” before proceeding to the next main line, the unit with sulfate.
The rover had his last selfie on Sol 2922, where he dug three holes on the rock slab. The first two holes were named in honor of Mary Anning, the 19th century paleontologist who discovered prehistoric fossils in the cliffs of the south-west coast of England. Her findings have contributed to an understanding of the Earth’s prehistoric marine life.
The BBC said the materials drilled in the holes would be used for two wet chemistry tests to remove organic molecules preserved in the rock.
SITE MORE: Mars Curiosity Rover: What you should know about his long mission on Mars
Check out more Curiosity Rover news and information on the Science Times.