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NASA's Mars Exploration Program (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Sol 1100: Swan, Sunburst, Studhorse, Sweetgrass Arch, and Silver Hill
The images for panorama obtained by the rover's 34-millimeter Mast Camera. The mosaic, which stretches about 30,000 pixels width, includes 138 images taken on Sol 1100 (September 9, 2015).
The rover drove 34.5 meters on Sol 1099, as planned, to a good location for the imaging of the northwest wall of Bridger Basin . The Mastcam team verified that the pointing of the mosaic of that wall, planned to occur early on Sol 1100, is excellent. So the Sol 1100 plan includes another drive, to the southwest edge of the small plateau the rover is on. Before the drive, ChemCam and Mastcam will observe nearby layered rocks dubbed "Swan" and "Sunburst," and Right Mastcam mosaics will be taken of targets named "Studhorse," "Sweetgrass Arch" and "Silver Hill." After the drive, in addition to the standard post-driving activities, we're planning a Right Mastcam mosaic of "Beartooth Butte" and a SAM diagnostic activity in preparation for the next solid sample analysis. Fitting all of the desired observations into the plan was challenging, otherwise I've had an easy day as SOWG Chair. The MRO operations team identified the cause of the communications relay problem we had over the holiday weekend, and sent commands to the spacecraft to correct it. We're happy that we are again receiving lots of good data via MRO!
By Ken Herkenhoff
Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center
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".
