Photos of the Day: Curiosity Finds Clay, Water-Bearing Minerals

Last week, the rover’s science team announced that analysis of powder from a drilled mudstone rock on Mars indicates past environmental conditions that were favorable for microbial life.

This raw image of “Tintina,” a broken rock fragment in a rover wheel track, was taken by Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam). When Curiosity drove over Tintina, the rock broke apart and exposed a fresh, bright white surface that may be the same as similarly bright material filling pale veins in the nearby bedrock of the “Yellowknife Bay” area. The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took this image of Tintina during the 160th Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s work on Mars (Jan. 17, 2013). The size of the rock is roughly 1.2 inches by 1.6 inches (3 centimeters by 4 centimeters).

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This self-portrait of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity combines 66 exposures taken by the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s work on Mars (Feb. 3, 2013).

The rover is positioned at a patch of flat outcrop called “John Klein,” which was selected as the site for the first rock-drilling activities by Curiosity. The self-portrait was acquired to document the drilling site.

The rover’s robotic arm is not visible in the mosaic. MAHLI, which took the component images for this mosaic, is mounted on a turret at the end of the arm. Wrist motions and turret rotations on the arm allowed MAHLI to acquire the mosaic’s component images. The arm was positioned out of the shot in the images or portions of images used in the mosaic.

Figure 1 indicates the location of a rock target called “Knorr” near the rover. Scientists used Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) to study spectral characteristics of Knorr.

On this image of the broken rock called “Tintina,” color coding maps the amount of mineral hydration indicated by a ratio of near-infrared reflectance intensities measured by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity. The color scale on the right shows the assignment of colors for relative strength of the calculated signal for hydration. The map shows a strong signal for hydration is associated with the surface that was exposed when the rock was broken by the rover driving over it.

That freshly exposed surface displays a bright material that may be the same as similarly bright material filling pale veins in the nearby bedrock of the “Yellowknife Bay” area. The size of the rock is roughly 1.2 inches by 1.6 inches (3 centimeters by 4 centimeters).

This image is a Mastcam observation of Tintina during the 160th Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s work on Mars (Jan. 17, 2013). The spectral data for assessing hydration come from Mastcam observations through a series of narrow-waveband filters on Sol 162 (Jan. 19, 2013).