NASA's Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sol 2283 Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Today was our last day at "Rock Hall," so it was our final chance to get every last bit of science at this location. We had a 2.5 hour science block filled with Mastcam change detection imaging of the Rock Hall drill fines and alternating ChemCam RMI and LIBS observations of the Rock Hall dump pile, drill tailings, and target "St.Cyrus 2." The ChemCam activities were followed by Mastcam documentation images of each of the aforementioned targets, and we also included a B-side computer diagnostic and an overnight APXS of the Rock Hall drill tailings.
Gale Crater has become a lot dustier in recent sols due to a regional dust storm in the southern hemisphere that was spotted by the Mars Climate Sounder team, so we added several extra environmental observations to see how this is affecting the atmosphere. These included extra measurements of the amount of dust above us (with the observation known as the "Mastcam tau") and of visibility across the crater (with the "Navcam Line of Sight" and "Mastcam Crater Rim Extinction" observations).
We also added more REMS 1-hr measurements to better capture the diurnal cycles of pressure and temperature. When the regional or global dust loading increases, it changes how the atmosphere expands and contracts in response to solar insolation, which affects how air moves around and alters the large-scale patterns of surface pressure (since pressure is caused by the mass of air in a column over the surface). We monitor this by seeing how the shape of the daily pressure cycle changes from sol to sol. More atmospheric dust also means more of the incoming solar radiation is absorbed before it reaches the rover, so daytime near-surface and ground temperatures decrease compared to normal. At night, however, the warmer overlying atmosphere emits more thermal radiation, keeping the temperature of the surface and near-surface warmer than usual. More dust heating also means that near-surface and surface temperatures are more strongly coupled, resulting in a reduced surface-to-air temperature contrast, all of which REMS measurements are starting to show.
Another effect of increased dustiness is therefore that we expect to observe fewer convective vortices and dust devils (dusty vortices), because a smaller surface-to-air temperature difference means less heat is pumped into the atmosphere to drive convection. So tosol we also included three types of Navcam dust devil searches, to see if the dust activity produces a decrease in the number or size of dust devils.
Navcam: Left A (NAV_LEFT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 2256
Navcam: Left A (NAV_LEFT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 2256
We'd normally expect to see a lot of dust devils in the current season (local summer). In fact, one passed right over the rover just as we were taking a movie a few sols before the dust began to increase! The second of the two frames above shows a slight reduction in visibility as this happened; at the same time, the dust devil's low-pressure core produced the largest vortex pressure drop ever measured on Mars (over 7 Pa, which is about 1% of the total surface pressure). Although we can't 'see' the dust devil in the images, we can tell the rover was inside one because of the decrease in visibility combined with the dramatic decrease in pressure.
About this Blog
These blog updates are provided by self-selected Mars Science Laboratory mission team members who love to share what Curiosity is doing with the public.
Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Contributors
Sterling Algermissen
Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Atmospheric Scientist; Texas A&M University; College Station, TX
Kristen Bennett
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Fred Calef
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Brittney Cooper
Atmospheric Scientist; York University; Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Sean Czarnecki
Planetary Geologist; Arizona State University; Tempe, AZ
Lauren Edgar
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Christopher Edwards
Planetary Geologist; Northern Arizona University; Flagstaff, AZ
Abigail Fraeman
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Scott Guzewich
Atmospheric Scientist; NASA/GSFC; Greenbelt, MD
Samantha Gwizd
Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN
Ken Herkenhoff
Planetary Geologist; USGS; Flagstaff, AZ
Rachel Kronyak
Planetary Geologist; University of Tennessee; Knoxville, TN
Sarah Lamm
Planetary Geologist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM
Michelle Minitti
Planetary Geologist; Framework; Silver Spring, MD
Claire Newman
Atmospheric Scientist, Aeolis Research; Pasadena, CA
Catherine O’Connell
Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Melissa Rice
Planetary Geologist; Western Washington University; Bellingham, WA
Mark Salvatore
Planetary Geologist; University of Michigan; Dearborn, MI
Susanne Schwenzer
Planetary Geologist; The Open University; Milton Keynes, U.K.
Ashley Stroupe
Mission Operations Engineer; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Dawn Sumner
Planetary Geologist; University of California Davis; Davis, CA
Vivian Sun
Planetary Geologist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Lucy Thompson
Planetary Geologist; University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Ashwin Vasavada
MSL Project Scientist; NASA/JPL; Pasadena, CA
Roger Wiens
Geochemist; LANL; Los Alamos, NM
Tools on the Curiosity Rover
The Curiosity rover has tools to study clues about past and present environmental conditions on Mars, including whether conditions have ever been favorable for microbial life. The rover carries:
Today was a very busy planning day for the Curiosity operations team. We planned a 3-sol plan, with contact science, imaging, environmental monitoring and a drive.
Similar to its namesake in Scotland, the Glen Torridon area on Mars affords us stunning vistas, but in our case, of the relatively low-lying clay bearing (from orbit) unit flanked to the north by the higher ground of the Vera Rubin Ridge and to the south, by Mount Sharp.
The accompanying image shows the target "Brent" in the lower right corner; it was analyzed with ChemCam and APXS, and imaged with MAHLI over the weekend.
Curiosity successfully completed her drive yesterday and is currently parked on top of one of the ridges ("Knockfarril Hill") in the clay-bearing unit.
This weekend's plan started off on Sol 2301 with some Mastcam atmospheric observations, followed by ChemCam analysis of "Loch Ness" and "Loch Skeen," examples of brown and gray bedrock.
Curiosity is continuing the first phase of its journey to the "clay-bearing unit," the low elevation portion in the middle distance of this Navcam image with a series of "touch-and-go" driving sols.
Curiosity has moved for the first time since December 13, 2018. More importantly, Curiosity is moving to a new geological unit that we have so far called the "Clay-Bearing Unit".
Sometimes the best laid plans of rovers go astray. After wrapping up at the Rock Hall drill site yesterday, the plan was for Curiosity to start driving towards the clay-bearing unit, starting with a series of small bumps so that MAHLI could take images of the full outer circumference of the wheels.
Today was our last day at "Rock Hall," so it was our final chance to get every last bit of science at this location. We had a 2.5 hour science block filled with Mastcam change detection imaging of the Rock Hall drill fines and alternating ChemCam RMI and LIBS observations of the Rock Hall dump pile, drill tailings, and target "St.Cyrus 2."
Today we planned a single sol of activities, Sol 2291. As we begin to wrap up our activities at the Rock Hall drill site, Sol 2291 is chock full of science observations. We'll begin the sol with an hour-long science block.
We will soon be leaving the Rock Hall area, thus this one last look at the drill site from a hazard camera perspective. Seeing those holes always is special, even for #19!
Our onboard instruments SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) and CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) have come to the end of their investigation of the Rock Hall target, likely to be our last drill location on the Vera Rubin Ridge, so this 2-sol plan is the beginning of the drill operation wrap up.
Today was a very smooth planning day on Mars, with the first scheduled science block in the plan being entirely filled by various spectroscopic ChemCam observations. The ChemCam instrument has the capabilities to be used in both passive and active modes, both of which were included in today's plan.
Today we are continuing the drill campaign at our red Jura target "Rock Hall." The focus of this weekend's plan is the dropoff of the Rock Hall sample to the SAM instrument, which will occur on Sol 2281.
The holiday planning completed successfully and included 10 sols of five-hour-long morning meteorological observations by REMS, during the period when more complex activities were precluded.
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