New Finds for Mars Rover, Curiosity, Seven Years After Landing

[Forerunner]

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7470

NASA's Curiosity rover has come a long way since touching down on Mars seven years ago. It has traveled a total of 13 miles (21 kilometers) and ascended 1,207 feet (368 meters) to its current location. Along the way, Curiosity discovered Mars had the conditions to support microbial life in the ancient past, among other things.

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Curiosity is now halfway through a region scientists call the "clay-bearing unit" on the side of Mount Sharp, inside of Gale Crater. Billions of years ago, there were streams and lakes within the crater. Water altered the sediment deposited within the lakes, leaving behind lots of clay minerals in the region. That clay signal was first detected from space by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) a few years before Curiosity launched.

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Curiosity is discovering a richer, more complex story behind the water on Mount Sharp - a process Fox likened to finally being able to read the paragraphs in a book - a dense book, with pages torn out, but a fascinating tale to piece together.

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[Fat4all]

so that's where i left my odd rocks

 

[Cort]

God dammit I remember the night it landed, it feels like yesterday.

 

[DrEvil]

I thought curiosity lost contact due to dust on the solar panels? did it wake back up?

edit: oh, that was opportunity,

 

[justin haines]

So awesome!

 

[Fritz]

a space oddity!

 

[Pirate Bae]

Keep going, lil rover!!

 

[Akela]

If anyone's interested there's a webcam where you can watch JPL build their next Mars rover that's hopefully launching next year, based on the design of Curiosity but with a whole new set of scientific instruments, including a small experimental helicopter.

This time, they hope to land it on the shore of an ancient lake bed, which is pretty exciting.