Mars Curiosity Rover Celebrates Sol 2,000 , Stunning Mount Sharp Mosaic Released

Full-rez tiff and jpeg here

Just another beautiful day on Mars but for Curiosity it's her 2,000th day traversing the red planet , this mosaic has been released to show Curiosity's next target for investigation , the area at the centre of the image is believed to be home to clay mineral deposits ripe for exploration.

NASA's Mars Curiosity rover just hit a new milestone: its two-thousandth Martian day, or sol, on the Red Planet. An image mosaic taken by the rover in January offers a preview of what comes next. Looming over the image is Mount Sharp, the mound Curiosity has been climbing since September 2014.

In the center of the image is the rover's next big, scientific target: an area scientists have studied from orbit and have determined contains clay mineral deposits. The formation of clay minerals requires water. Scientists have already determined that the lower layers of Mount Sharp formed within lakes that once spanned Gale Crater’s floor. The area ahead could offer additional insight into the presence of water, how long it may have persisted, and whether the ancient environment may have been suitable for life.
mars.nasa.gov...

Alien planet , right there from the comfort of our own homes.

It's amazing what this little machine has achieved..

a reply to: gortex
The pic is amazing.

Mars and the Moon are what originally brought me to this site. Lately however, politics seems to keep me occupied. But I always check out these posts. To me, they really are the best ones. Now if you can just get some little green men and theirs houses pics......

As for the Rover, who would have thought?

Such a beautiful image and a great achievement for space exploration. Looking forward to the next 2000 days.

Hopefully they'll move on to someplace a lot less boring than they have been in the last couple of months. Yeah, we get it. Hardened mud. What else you got? Sorry to be so jaded, but NASA / JPL, you made me that way!

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Hopefully they'll move on to someplace a lot less boring than they have been in the last couple of months. Yeah, we get it. Hardened mud. What else you got? Sorry to be so jaded, but NASA / JPL, you made me that way!

Defense landers/rovers activities remain clandestine

a reply to: gortex

Stanley! Have you been taking those fake photos again?!

originally posted by: Ophiuchus 13
Defense landers/rovers activities remain clandestine

You mean the ones trying to recover and activate the old machines up in the mountains? Yeah, no news from them.

a reply to: Blue Shift

a reply to: gortex

I just spent an hour looking at the tiff image.

I could easily spend more time.

AWESOME picture.

There are white rocks or crystals throughout the image.
I wonder what those are?

Also looks like meteor chunks on the upper left side.

I bet geologists are having a field day with this image.
s&f

a reply to: gortex

Isn’t that a pyramid in the background?

Jeez I’m gonna catch hell for that one.

a reply to: gortex
Great picture there.
There is still the Mars enigma of the magnetic field...the lack of it, even though it had one at a time, as well as signs of field reversals in the distant past.
Up until recently, Earth's core was thought to be entirely molten, now it is thought to have a solid core near the melting point, but also a substantial part of the outer core molten containing the dynamo effect, whereas Mars was thought to be a solid core, but some while ago, that also changed somewhat, and seemed to acknowledge that some small part of the outer core was also molten, but not useful..I presume, for the dynamo effect, and while the Mars mantle no longer has tectonics for some time.

So, is it becoming more of a question of rather than Mars running out of function, why is Earth still functioning as it is today in the process of differentiation
There are a couple of caveats to that, while still part of the Enigma. [1] is that, also fairly recently, the Earth...and the Moon, are a deal younger that previously thought.
[2] That Mar's other heavy metals, with low melting points were blown away from the surface by the Sun before finding their way down to the core, or at least a crucial percentage of them....whatever that may be.

Thing is to me, the ballbearing and sand idea for density just doesn't seem right for Mars, at least as we see it now, many of those surface rocks just seem dried out to death, like almost paper..although they aren't going anywhere soon, while the cores are at least iron and maybe just few other elements, yet it is not so small in size.

Very awesome picture, found a bit of an oddity which I have circled, any have an idea what that may be?

I love those dark bluish dunes, gives a nice contrast to the predominantly reddish landscape.

originally posted by: Sakrateri

Very awesome picture, found a bit of an oddity which I have circled, any have an idea what that may be?

It looks like some mineral deposits. mars.nasa.gov...