NASA’s Curiosity rover has been tootling across the martian surface since 2012, its lofty quest to determine if Mars ever had environmental conditions suitable for microbial life.
While it’s already shared strong evidence that the red planet once had the right conditions for such a scenario, Curiosity continues to learn more about Mars through science expeditions that include drilling for rock samples that it then analyzes in its onboard laboratory.
On Thursday, the hardy rover shared a striking image (top and below) showing its latest drilling site, with the disturbed Mars mudstone appearing so close to the lens that you feel like you can almost reach out and touch it. Take a closer look and marvel at the astonishing detail present in the image, and then consider that it exists not on Earth but in a place currently some 180 million miles from where you’re sat now.
“Meet ‘Altadena,’ my 43rd drill hole,” Curiosity said in its post. “It’s named after a city near where I was built back on Earth. I’ve got more sampling to do as a I scale Mount Sharp, unraveling its history one rocky layer at a time.”
The mudstone on Mars is a type of sedimentary rock formed from very fine particles of silt and clay that settled in ancient water bodies. It’s essentially the remnants of ancient lakebeds, suggesting that Mars held liquid water for an extensive period a long time ago.
Curiosity is conducting its work on Mount Sharp, which it’s been exploring for much of its time on Mars. The feature is an 18,000-foot-high mountain in the middle of Gale Crater, and whose sedimentary layers, formed over billions of years, hold clues to Mars’ watery past and potential habitability.
Curiosity’s mission was originally supposed to last no more than two years but was extended indefinitely after it successfully met its initial goals. In 2021, NASA landed the even more powerful Perseverance rover on Mars in a mission that complements the Curiosity rover by advancing the search for signs of ancient microbial life on the planet.
