Curiosity Had to Route Around a 23-Degree Slope to Reach a Fascinating Field of Craters - by spacewriter
A view of Curiosity’s tracks as it made its way through a particularly difficult sandy slope in the Jau region on Mars’s Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechThe Jau region is one “pit stop” on the road up Mount Sharp. It’s pitted with dozens of small craters. Mission scientists don’t get to see that many craters all at once, so it was a great place to study them. However, getting to Jau posed dangers the mission drivers had to plan around.
Drivers then work with mission scientists to figure out what the next moves will be. They send revised code to Mars overnight so the rover can implement it the next day. That’s what happened with the traverse to Jau. Curiosity wasn’t in any danger while getting there, but drivers had to contend with sudden events when the rover would stop due to something unforeseen. They called those “faults” and there were plenty of them along the way to Jau.
At one point, the rover drivers and scientists programmed a detour to help the rover avoid some troublesome terrain. That added a few weeks on the journey. “It felt great to finally get over the ridge and see that amazing vista,” Schoelen said. “I get to look at images of Mars all day long, so I really get a sense of the landscape. I often feel like I’m standing right there next to Curiosity, looking back at how far it has climbed.
The route Curiosity has taken so far on its trip to Jau, on the slopes of Mount Sharp. Each dot shows a place where the rover stopped. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS-Flagstaff/University of ArizonaJau region is a crater cluster slopes of Mount Sharp. At least one crater is filled with sand and broken rock slabs pave the area. Interestingly, the Jau area, like all of the Mount Sharp region, was once populated by lakes, rivers, and streams.
Mount Sharp , is actually the central peak of an impact crater. Its made up of layers of eroded sedimentary rock laid down before the crater formed. Other layers of material in the crater could have come from later lake deposits. Scientists estimate that some of those layers got deposited at least 3 to 3.5 billion years ago. Now they want to know if that lake could have hosted some form of life in those ancient times.
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