Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Curiosity rover nopes out of region of sharp Mars rocks

Georgina Torbet
By

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.

Related

“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.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
NASA regains communications with Mars helicopter Ingenuity
The Ingenuity helicopter is pictured on the surface of Mars.

Just a few days after losing contact with the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, NASA announced that it has regained communications with the plucky little helicopter. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which designed and operated the helicopter, announced that it is back in touch following an unexpected communications dropout.

The Ingenuity helicopter is pictured on the surface of Mars. NASA

Read more
NASA has lost communication with the Ingenuity Mars helicopter
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is seen here in a close-up taken by Mastcam-Z, a pair of zoomable cameras aboard the Perseverance rover. This image was taken on April 5, the 45th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity has had a remarkable lifespan and has proven to be a greater success than anyone imagined. Originally designed to perform just five flights over the surface of Mars, the helicopter has now performed more than 70. However, NASA has now announced that it has lost contact with the helicopter, though it's unclear how serious this problem is.

The helicopter was performing its 72nd flight, which was an adjustment and correction to a previous flight that was cut short. Flight 71 was intended to be a journey of 1,175 feet (358 meters), but when the helicopter made this flight earlier in the month, it traveled just a third of that. The problem was related to its downward-facing camera, which uses surface indications for autonomous navigation. The helicopter was traveling over a particularly featureless expanse of the surface, and the lack of landmarks appeared to cause a problem with its navigation, forcing the flight to end early.

Read more
See the passing of a day on Mars with the Curiosity rover
Curiosity rover

While many of us are on vacation this week between Christmas and New Year, the Curiosity rover on Mars is getting back to work after taking time off last month. In November, NASA's Mars missions paused for two weeks during an event called the Mars solar conjunction, when the sun is directly between Earth and Mars.

That means that any communications signals passing between the two planets would have to pass close to the harsh solar environment, where they would likely be degraded. To avoid any risk of garbled communications sending dangerous signals to the rovers, NASA stopped sending commands to both its Curiosity and Perseverance rovers until the solar conjunction passed.

Read more