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NASA's Mars Exploration Program (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Sol 2831: The One Where Curiosity Takes Mary Anning to Mars
The images for panorama obtained by the rover's 34-millimeter Mast Camera. The mosaic, which stretches about 30,000 pixels width, includes 124 images taken on Sol 2831 (July 23, 2020).
Our drive in the last plan successfully placed at what we hope is our next drill site, the large, lovely, layered block in the image above. It is always exciting to name a new drill target, but the new name, "Mary Anning," is particularly special. Mary Anning spent her life scouring the seaside cliffs near Lyme Regis, along the southern coast of England, for fossils. She uncovered innumerable samples, most notably the first full Ichthyosaur and the first Plesiosaur. But as all too often occurs in society, Mary Anning’s gender and societal status led her groundbreaking work and discoveries to be dismissed by the scientific establishment or, worse, appropriated by men. Let Mary Anning’s name on Mars remind us to include everyone in the endeavor of exploration.
Fittingly, every team played a role in planning the five sols that will accomplish the work necessary to attempt drilling next week. ChemCam will measure the chemistry of both the primary and back up Mary Anning drill targets, in addition to “Carter Fell,” another target on the large bedrock slab we will drill. APXS will also analyze the chemistry of the primary Mary Anning target, MAHLI will image the target in detail, and then the rover planners will push the drill bit into the drill target to gauge its hardness and test its ability to withstand the force of the drill activity. Mastcam will acquire a 360 degree panoramic mosaic of our surroundings, which documents the context of our drill location within the Glen Torridon region and facilitates planning for more detailed imaging of the region. Since the workspace is obviously of interest, Mastcam will also acquire a detailed stereo mosaic that covers the workspace. CheMin will conduct an empty cell analysis and SAM will test out analysis techniques, each in preparation for analyzing the next drill sample.
Even as our attention is drawn to the rocks around us, dust storm season swirls about Curiosity, warranting our attention on the skies as well.
Written by Michelle Minitti
Other panoramas of Mars by Curiosity rover:
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The planet Earth has proven to be too limiting for our awesome community of panorama photographers. We're getting an increasing number of submissions that depict locations either not on Earth (like Mars, the Moon, and Outer Space in general) or do not realistically represent a geographic location on Earth (either because they have too many special effects or are computer generated) and hence don't strictly qualify for our Panoramic World project.But many of these panoramas are extremely beautiful or popular of both.So, in order to accommodate our esteemed photographers and the huge audience that they attract to 360Cities with their panoramas, we've created a new section (we call it an "area") called "Out of this World" for panoramas like these.Don't let the fact that these panoramas are being placed at the Earth's South Pole fool you - we had to put them somewhere in order not to interfere with our Panoramic World.Welcome aboard on a journey "Out of this World".
