Skip to main content

Curiosity rover nopes out of region of sharp Mars rocks

There are many obstacles for a little rover exploring Mars to deal with, from steep hills to deep ravines to dust which can obscure solar panels or get into mechanical components. Now, the Curiosity rover has one more challenge to add to that list: The densest region of sharp rocks that the rover’s NASA drivers have ever seen.

The rocks, sharpened into vicious points by the Martian wind, were spotted blocking Curiosity’s path in an area called the Greenheugh Pediment on March 18. The team decided they couldn’t risk running Curiosity’s wheels over the jagged rocks, especially since similar rocks had already damaged the wheels earlier in the mission in 2017. “It was obvious from Curiosity’s photos that this would not be good for our wheels,” said Megan Lin, Curiosity Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. “It would be slow going, and we wouldn’t have been able to implement rover-driving best practices.”

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to survey these wind-sharpened rocks, called ventifacts, on March 15, 2022, the 3,415th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The team has informally described these patches of ventifacts as “gator-back” rocks because of their scaly appearance.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to survey these wind-sharpened rocks, called ventifacts, on March 15, 2022, the 3,415th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The team has informally described these patches of ventifacts as “gator-back” rocks because of their scaly appearance. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Technically called ventifacts, these rocks are formed of sandstone and were nicknamed “gator-back” by the team for the scale-like appearance of the terrain. After Curiosity’s previous run-in with this terrain, the team adapted its driving approach to slow down wear to the wheels, but with this dense field of ventifacts, it was judged best to go around rather than over.

Recommended Videos

Curiosity has been exploring the Greenheugh Pediment, which is a gently sloped region at the base of Mount Sharp, but now it will head back down toward a region it previously passed through where there are plentiful clay deposits. Clays are of particular interest because they form in water, so studying them can show where water once flowed on Mars’s surface.

“It was really cool to see rocks that preserved a time when lakes were drying up and being replaced by streams and dry sand dunes,” said Abigail Fraeman, Curiosity’s deputy project scientist at JPL. “I’m really curious to see what we find as we continue to climb on this alternate route.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Elon Musk voices renewed hope for first crewed Mars mission
In this artist’s concept, NASA astronauts drill into the Martian subsurface. The agency has created new maps that show where ice is most likely to be easily accessible to future astronauts.

With his new buddy Donald Trump now back in the White House, SpaceX boss Elon Musk has renewed hope of getting the first humans to Mars before the end of this decade.

During his inauguration speech on Monday, President Trump said that his administration “will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

Read more
NASA has two ideas for how to get samples back from Mars
An illustration of NASA's Sample Return Lander shows it tossing a rocket in the air like a toy from the surface of Mars.

NASA has big goals for Mars. It wants to collect the first-ever samples from the Martian surface and deliver them back to Earth in an ambitious mission called Mars Sample Return. But even in its development phase, the mission has run into problems. With a ballooning budget and unrealistic time frame, NASA decided last year that it needed a new approach to the mission, and now it has announced an update. It's working on two ideas, with the best to be chosen in 2026.

“Pursuing two potential paths forward will ensure that NASA is able to bring these samples back from Mars with significant cost and schedule saving compared to the previous plan,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “These samples have the potential to change the way we understand Mars, our universe, and – ultimately – ourselves. I’d like to thank the team at NASA and the strategic review team, led by Dr. Maria Zuber, for their work.”

Read more
NASA orbiter captures one last image of retired InSight lander on Mars
This illustration shows NASA's InSight spacecraft with its instruments deployed on the Martian surface.

NASA's Insight lander spent four years on the surface of Mars, uncovering secrets of the planet's interior, but it eventually succumbed to the most martian of environmental threats: dust. Mars has periodic dust storms that can whip up into huge global events, lifting dust up into the air and then dumping it on everything in sight -- including solar panels. After years of accumulation, eventually the dust was so thick that Insight's solar panels could no longer generate enough power to keep it operational, and the mission officially came to an end in December 2022.

That wasn't quite the end of the story for InSight, though, as it is still being used for science to this day, albeit indirectly. Recently, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) caught a glimpse of InSight from orbit, capturing the lander's dusty surroundings and showing how even more dust had built up on it.

Read more