Correct me if I'm wrong. So next step forward is going to be driving on Murray formation rocks with unreachable Stimson rock formation on top I believe the rover has already examined a sample of Murray formation at Pahrump hills so next interesting target would be to drive to clays and haematite ridge?.

Exomars signal acquisition!

Do I see blueberries in the foreground?

The Naukluft plateau seems more rugged and terraced. Is it part of the stimson unit curiosity has been exploring or is it a completely different unit?

How will the rover wheels manage the traverse across such terrain?

The rover seems to be sitting on a high ridge. Is that an illusion or real?

It would mean that the solar system has got 2 belts, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper belt between Neptune and what lies beyond such as planet 9.

I believe they were talking about subsurface liquid nitrogen where temperatures and pressures are higher.

Good news. Congrats to JAXA.

It seems evident that glaciers are slowly transporting material from the higher terrain onto the icy plains slowly eroding the rough mountain terrain.

wow!

I note that it was mentioned that the study of the upcoming Bagnold dune field is the first attempt of its sort with regards to Mars exploration. I recall the El Dorado dune at the Spirit landing sight in Colombia Hills . Is that a completely different structure or something similar?

Impressive study providing detailed analysis of different rock stratigraphy along the curiosity traverse from Bradbury to Murray formation. However there is no mention of rock compostion along the way. As far as I know, there had been a puzzle as the rock make up up to now had been largely basaltic in nature. Provided that these sediments had been theorised as being laid down by water, this basaltic composition seems somewhat of a contradiction since water should have altered the basaltic nature of the rock. Any thoughts?

Thanks for your effort Paolo but I still don't have access to it for some reason.

A paper in Science magazine issued 9th October on paleoclimates and lacustrine environment in gale crater. Don't have link. Do not have free access to it I m afraid!

This would mean that what we see on pluto is simply ice sublimation and deposition together with tholin dust modification of the surface. What about the role of tectonic forces if any are present?

It would look like the bedrock on pluto is made up of water ice and mostly represents the heavily cratered 'old' terrain. The newer areas are covered with other ices methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen presumably over an underlying water ice bedrock.

Could such close up pictures of Pluto's mountains shed light as to how they formed. We know on earth that mountains form due to plate tectonics. What about mountains on pluto?

To me it looks like the mountain chain having been exposed after erosion by the retreating ice. The question remains what is causing the ice to retreat whether its a seasonal effect or whether it is an effect of internal heat.

From the latest picture, my impression is that the mountains are a result of erosion by ice of the heavily cratered dark terrain.

That would explain the interruption of the dark regions along the equatorial latitudes under Tombough Regio.

I was just going to say that those chunks of ice look like floating icebergs on some fluid but I was thinking it was a silly idea and maybe it is.

The fact we see craters on Charon reinforces the youth of Pluto's surface seen so far at high res.

What puzzles me is that similar surface features seen on other icy moons have shown topographies in hundreds of metres (correct me if I'm wrong) and not thousands of metres as seems to be the case with Pluto.

agreed. That terrain seems to result from compression from some tectonic force unless what we see is the result of ice sublimation leaving water bed rock exposed. 11000 ft high would seem too high for the latter.