Curiosity is the largest robot to ever land on another planet. It is about the size of a small SUV. Because Curiosity is so big, it also has bigger wheels than the previous rovers. This helps it to roll over rocks and sand without getting stuck. However, even on a long driving day, it still only travels about feet.
Curiosity landed in Gale Crater. This crater is special because it has a tall mountain in the middle. The mountain has many layers of rock. Each layer is made of different minerals from different time periods. These minerals could tell scientists about the history of water on Mars. The landing sites of all four Mars rovers on a map of Mars. As will the latitude and longitude to note your location on the lower right corner. The plus and minus symbols on the top right corner will also allow you to zoom in and out.
Along the top edge of the map, you can see the driving Sols on Mars. Sometimes there are several days Sols' worth of interesting science to do in one spot before moving on. The total distance is recorded in kilometers and in miles and is updated every time the rover drives.
Use the layers tool on the left side-bar to select or deselect the color base map, location labels, path or waypoints. Use the sliders to the left to adjust the color and contrast of the base map. Select sites to explore by clicking the pin icon. View a list of the major, named areas in Gale crater that Curiosity has visited.
It then headed southwest up Mount Sharp. Much later in June , scientists published results from an investigation of Buckskin noting that the silica mineral in question was tridymite, a material generally linked to silicic volcanism. Continuing its studies at Mount Sharp, on Sept. New results from Curiosity, published in October , confirmed that billions of years ago there were water lakes on Mars.
Scientists determined that water helped deposit sediment into Gale Crater, and the sediment was deposited as layers that formed the foundation for Mount Sharp, the mountain in the middle of Gale.
In December , Curiosity began close examination and returned spectacular images of dark sand dunes up to two stories tall, located at Bagnold Dunes, a band along the northwestern side of Mount Sharp. Through the subsequent few weeks, the rover took several samples from the Samib Dune that were sorted by grain size for closer studies. Moving on from the dunes in early March , Curiosity climbed onto the Naukluft Plateau on the lower side of Mount Sharp, ending up in a stretch of extremely rugged and difficult-to-navigate terrain, with bedrock shaped by long periods of wind erosion into ridges and knobs.
Here, the rover continued to take drill samples its 10th and 11th. On July 2, , Curiosity suddenly entered into safe standby mode, but controllers were able to return it to normal operations a week later.
Among the many thousands of images returned by Curiosity, some of the most spectacular were those of the Murray Buttes region of lower Mount Sharp. Curiosity began a second two-year extended mission on Oct. At that point, the rover had returned more than , images to Earth. On Dec. Despite the problem with the drill, Curiosity was once again investigating active sand dunes the so-called Bagnold Dunes.
As of Feb. In March , JPL controllers uploaded software for traction control that helped the rover adjust wheel speed depending on the rocks it is climbing. The traction control algorithm uses real-time data to vary the wheel speed, thus reducing pressure from the rocks. The ridge was thought to be rich in an iron-oxide mineral known as hematite that can form under wet conditions.
Two months later, the rover began making a steep ascent toward the ridge top. While it was still several months away from resuming full-scale drilling operations on the Martian surface, this and subsequent tests allowed ground controllers to test techniques, including using the motion of the robotic arm directly to advance the extended bit into the rock, thus working around the mechanical problem that had suspended drill work.
NASA has made significant attempts to involve the public in the Curiosity mission. On the third anniversary of landing on Mars, in August , the agency made available two online tools for public engagement. Mars Trek was a free web-based application that provides high-quality visualizations of the planet derived from 50 years of NASA exploration of Mars, while Experience Curiosity was a platform to allow viewers to experience in 3D, movement along the surface of Mars based on data from both Curiosity and MRO.
NASA also released a social media game, Mars Rover, for use on mobile devices where users can drive a rover through Martian terrain while earning points. In April , scientists working with Curiosity announced the spacecraft had explored a region called "the clay-bearing unit" and tasted its first sample from this part of Mount Sharp. Curiosity drilled a piece of bedrock nicknamed Aberlady on April 6, , and delivered the sample to its internal mineralogy lab.
The rover's drill chewed easily through the rock, unlike some of the tougher targets it faced nearby on Vera Rubin Ridge. It was so soft, in fact, that the drill didn't need to use its percussive technique, which is helpful for snagging samples from hard rock.
This was the mission's first sample obtained using only the rotation of the drill bit. Siddiqi, Asif A. What is Curiosity MSL? The rover began its first drive on Mars Aug. The rover is about as tall as a basketball player and uses a 7-foot 2-meter arm to place tools close to rocks for study.
A 3D model of the Curiosity Mars rover.
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