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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4675-4681: Deciding Where to Dig Into the Boxworks

por admin | 14 noviembre, 2025 - 12:02 am |14 noviembre, 2025 Astronomy

Curiosity Blog, Sols 4675-4681: Deciding Where to Dig Into the Boxworks

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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4675-4681: Deciding Where to Dig Into the Boxworks

A grayscale photo from the Martian surface shows a landscape with an elevated ridge running from the foreground, at the bottom left of the image, toward the middle right side of the frame, with two branches extending toward the left side of the frame, creating a U-shaped depression between them. The top of the ridge is much lighter colored than the medium gray surrounding terrain, which extends off to the horizon at the top of the frame, and is interspersed with areas of scattered small, jagged rocks and wavy sand deposits.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Right Navigation Camera, showing the three types of geologic features that have held the mission team’s attention for months — a bright, arcuate boxwork ridge, a darker, sand-filled hollow, and, in the distance, the “Mishe Mokwa” butte. Curiosity captured the image on Oct. 2, 2025 — Sol 4677, or Martian day 4,677 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 15:49:32 UTC.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Michelle Minitti, MAHLI Deputy Principal Investigator at Framework

Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 3, 2025

Before Curiosity landed 13 years ago, the science team eyed all the geologic wonders scattered across the flanks of Mount Sharp and looked forward to the day when we could put the rover to work on them. We have visited so many of these wonders — valleys, river channels, lakebeds — and found a few that we were not expecting.

Since Sol 4600, we have been exploring the heart of one of these long-awaited wonders — the boxwork structures — to uncover what created this expansive network of ridges and hollows. Each stop along the traverse since then has been an exercise in systematic detective work.

APXS and ChemCam analyses from the center of a ridge, to its edges, and into its neighboring hollow looked for chemical variations that indicate what is holding the ridges together, making them higher than the hollows. Mastcam and ChemCam RMI imaging mapped the architecture of the ridges and hollows looking for structures that provide clues to their formation. Their imaging of more distant features such as the buttes that rise hundreds of meters on either side of the valley hosting the boxworks helped define the geologic context of the area. MAHLI imaging of ridge and hollow targets sought variations in grain size that might indicate how the boxwork bedrock was deposited. DAN surveyed the ground under the rover at every stop, measuring hydrogen (and thus assumed, water) content to see how it varies between ridges and hollows.

This week, the team ingested all the results from this thorough exploration to make a decision about our next drill site, where SAM and CheMin will have their chance to interrogate the boxworks. The rover will head north to the “Monte Grande” hollow in which we identified promising bedrock for sampling. Eventually, we will drill a ridge but that is for a future blog. Comparing the mineralogy, volatile content, and organic chemistry of the ridges and hollows will give us our most detailed insight into how the boxworks formed.

REMS and RAD do not particularly care if they are parked over a ridge or hollow, as the sky above is their domain. Both instruments kept their steady watch on the weather — Martian and space, respectively. Navcam and Mastcam helped with the environmental watch by measuring dust in the atmosphere, looking for dust devils, and capturing the last of the cloudy season.

Want to read more posts from the Curiosity team?

Visit Mission Updates
Want to learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments?

Visit the Science Instruments page

A rover sits on the hilly, orange Martian surface beneath a flat grey sky, surrounded by chunks of rock.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity at the base of Mount Sharp

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

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Nov 13, 2025

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A Robotic Helping Hand

por admin | 13 noviembre, 2025 - 6:03 pm |13 noviembre, 2025 Astronomy

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A Robotic Helping Hand

The 57.7-foot-long Canadarm2 robotic arm extends from the International Space Station. The arm is long, cylindrical, and white, with several joints that are bent to the right (at left in the image) and downward (at center). Earth makes a bright white and blue background for the top half of the photo. Our home planet contrasts starkly with the darkness of space.

NASA/Jonny Kim

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim took this photo on July 23, 2025, as the International Space Station orbited 259 miles above a cloudy Pacific Ocean southwest of Mexico. Visible in the image is the 57.7-foot-long Canadarm2 robotic arm, which extends from a data grapple fixture on the International Space Station’s Harmony module. Attached to its latching end effector is Dextre, the station’s fine-tuned robotic hand designed for delicate external maintenance tasks. Station crew use Canadarm2 to perform maintenance tasks, capture visiting spacecraft, and move supplies, equipment, and even astronauts.

On Nov. 2, 2025, the space station reached 25 years of continuous human presence. The orbital lab remains a training and proving ground for deep space missions, enabling NASA to focus on Artemis missions to the Moon and Mars.

Image credit: NASA/Jonny Kim

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A Stranger in Our Midst?

por admin | 13 noviembre, 2025 - 6:02 pm |13 noviembre, 2025 Astronomy

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A Stranger in Our Midst?

Perseverance Encounters a Possible Meteorite

A color photo from the Martian surface shows a close-up of a large tan and pale orange rock pockmarked with numerous large holes, which are mostly filled with dark, rust-colored sand. In the background, pale orange, very rocky terrain is visible in the top third of the image.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this close-up view showing the cavernous weathering texture of an unusually shaped rock, “Phippsaksla,” targeted for investigation based on its appearance that differed from the low-lying surrounding rocks. Study showed that it is high in iron and nickel content, suggesting that it might be a meteorite. Perseverance captured the image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera, one of a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast, on Sept. 19, 2025 — Sol 1629, or Martian day 1,629 of the Mars 2020 mission — at the local mean solar time of 12:11:25.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Written by Candice Bedford, Research Scientist at Purdue University

Oct. 1, 2025

During the rover’s recent investigation of the bedrock at “Vernodden,” Perseverance encountered an unusually shaped rock about 80 centimeters across (about 31 inches) called “Phippsaksla.” This rock was identified as a target of interest based on its sculpted, high-standing appearance that differed from that of the low-lying, flat and fragmented surrounding rocks. Last week, Perseverance targeted Phippsaksla with the SuperCam instrument revealing that it is high in iron and nickel. This element combination is usually associated with iron-nickel meteorites formed in the core of large asteroids, suggesting that this rock formed elsewhere in the solar system.

A color photo from the Martian surface shows pale orange, very rocky terrain in the foreground, with a large, pockmarked rock in the background at upper left.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the unusually shaped rock, “Phippsaksla,” in the distance at upper left, which is suspected to be a meteorite because of its high iron and nickel content. Perseverance captured the image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera, one of a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast, on Sept. 2, 2025 — Sol 1612, or Martian day 1,612 of the Mars 2020 mission — at the local mean solar time of 12:45:41.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

This is not the first time a rover has encountered an exotic rock on Mars. The Curiosity rover has identified many iron-nickel meteorites across its traverse in Gale crater including the 1-meter wide (about 39 inches) “Lebanon” meteorite back in 2014 and the “Cacao” meteorite spotted in 2023. Both Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, also found iron-nickel meteorites during their missions. As such, it has been somewhat unexpected that Perseverance had not seen iron-nickel meteorites within Jezero crater, particularly given its similar age to Gale crater and number of smaller impact craters suggesting that meteorites did fall on the crater floor, delta, and crater rim throughout time. Now, on the outside of the crater, atop bedrock known to have formed from impact processes in the past, Perseverance has potentially found one. Due to the exotic composition of this rock, more investigation by the team needs to be done to confirm its status as a meteorite. But if this rock is deemed to be a meteorite Perseverance can at long last add itself to the list of Mars rovers who have investigated the fragments of rocky visitors to Mars.

Want to read more posts from the Perseverance team?

Visit Mission Updates
Want to learn more about Perseverance’s science instruments?

Visit the Science Instruments page

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