Video: Fly over Mount Sharp on Mars

Ever wanted to visit Mars? A new animated video shows what
it would be like to soar over Mount Sharp, which NASA’s Curiosity rover has
been climbing since 2014.

This video highlights several regions on the mountain that
are intriguing to Curiosity’s scientists, chief among them what the science
team calls the “clay-bearing unit,” where Curiosity has just started analyzing
rock samples
. The aerial tour also shows the roving science lab’s
proposed path in the years to come. Intriguing targets include the rocky cliffs
of the “sulfate-bearing unit,” where sulfate minerals may indicate the
area was drying up or becoming more acidic in ancient times, and Gediz Vallis, where a river may have carved
a path through the sulfate unit.

After spending the better part of a year exploring Mars’ Vera Rubin Ridge, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has moved to a new part of Mount Sharp. Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada gives a tour of the rover’s new home in the “clay unit,” as well as other areas scientists are excited to visit.

Each region represents a different period in the history of Mount
Sharp, which rises about 3 miles (5 kilometers)
from the base of Gale Crater. Curiosity’s scientists want to visit these
places to learn more about the history of water on the mountain, which slowly
dried up as the climate changed.

Understanding how these changes occurred on Mount Sharp may provide new insights into why water – one of the most critical resources for life – disappeared from Mars billions of years ago.

NASA plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024 as a step toward human exploration of Mars. The technologies that will be developed for the Moon will make future robotic and human missions to Mars possible.

For more information about the Curiosity Mars rover, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/

For more information about NASA’s Mars program, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/

News Media Contact

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1501
alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

2019-088

This article was originally posted on JPL/NASA

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