Thursday, June 6, 2013



Image Caption: Curiosity Points to Mount Sharp. Curiosity unstowed the robotic arm on Aug. 20 and aimed it directly at her Martian drive destination – Mount Sharp. This mosaic of the robotic arm was assembled from navigation camera images from Sols 2, 12 and 14 and shows 18,000 foot high Mount Sharp in the background and the shadow of the martian robot’s head at center. Curiosity will search for hydrated minerals using the robotic arm and a neutron detector on the body. Image stitching and processing by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo




Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/96932/curiosity-takes-aim-at-martian-destination-mount-sharp/#ixzz2VRMSEQLu
After investigating for ten months at the plains, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is set to move toward the mountains in search for favorable habitats that could be suitable for microbial life.
According to deputy project scientist Joy Crisp from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the journey to “Mount Sharp” will be a long one. "This truly is a mission of exploration, so just because our end goal is Mount Sharp does not mean we are not going to investigate interesting features along the way."
"We're going to keep our eyes open as we drive and if we in fact drive past something that's amazing, we might actually turn around and go back and check it out, but there's nothing that we see from orbit that's like some super-compelling clue to life or something like that," Crisp said.
"What we have is a real desire to get to Mount Sharp.”

Considered as the “biggest turning point since landing” of Curiosity, NASA hopes that investigations at “Mount Sharp” will unearth new evidence of life-friendly habitats on Mars. From the images of Mount Sharp taken from orbit and images Curiosity has taken from a distance, scientists have figured out many layers in the area, which may offer significant information on how the ancient Martian environment changed and evolved.

Scientists said the Mars Science Laboratory mission has already accomplished its main science objective. Analysis of rock powder from the first drilled rock target, "John Klein," provided evidence that an ancient environment in Gale Crater had favorable conditions for microbial life -- the essential elemental ingredients, energy and ponded water that was neither too acidic nor too briny.

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