All rights reserved. Science Explainer. Why we explore Mars—and what decades of missions have revealed In the s, humans set out to discover what the red planet has to teach us.
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We had been studying the clay-rich rocks in Glen Torridon and named it after an important area of ancient sediments in Scotland. On Sol Curiosity paused to capture a family portrait of Earth and its planetary neighbours. The foreground shows a cliff on Mars; while in the sky, one can see both Venus and Earth appearing like stars in the dusty evening sky.
In the summer of , Curiosity's science team began driving the rover toward a new and higher region on Mount Sharp where it will explore rocks rich in sulphate minerals.
Because Mount Sharp was formed as layers of sediment were deposited by water and wind, the rocks get younger with height. The sulphate minerals in this region may have formed because Mars went from wetter conditions—good for forming clay minerals—to drier conditions that could leave salts such as sulphates behind.
On Sol , Curiosity completed its steepest drive of the mission as it ascended the sandy slope below the Greenheugh pediment, a broad flat surface capped by a sandstone layer. The rover took these images on Sol as it looked across the layered sandstones and back over the Glen Torridon region below.
We all know Mars as the Red Planet, we see that in the night sky. However, as our drill tailings gallery shows, once we drill just a small depth in to the interior, Mars can be very different.
We have drilled successfully 29 times now and the sediments show a range of hues from ochre-red to blue-grey reflecting the minerals and fluids that passed through the ancient rocks. Drilling allows us to get through the top most, oxidized surface that has been most exposed to cosmic radiation. Curiosity in isolation at Glasgow. When Curiosity landed on Mars, it was a big deal. Not only was it the largest rover to land on the red planet, but a new landing system was also tested.
The new landing procedure first had the spacecraft descend to the surface via parachute see image to the right, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then, during the final seconds prior to touching down on Martian soil, the landing system fired rockets so it would hover above the surface while a tether lowered Curiosity safely onto Mars.
According to NASA, to keep both risks and cost low, the new Mars rover, or Perseverance, was architecturally modeled after Curiosity. Perseverance will be taking things one step further than Curiosity by searching for signs of past microbial life. Pretty exciting, right? The spacecraft descended on a parachute, then during the final seconds before landing, the landing system fired rockets to allow it to hover while a tether lowered Curiosity to the surface.
The rover landed on its wheels, the tether was cut, and the landing system flew off to crash-land a safe distance away. Mars Curiosity Rover. Launch: a. PST, Nov.
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