Exploring Mt Sharp - The Dunes - Part 2: Naukluft Plateau, Sites 53-54, Sols 1274-1352, March 7-May 27 2016 Options

[PaulH51]

FL HazCam: Midnight Planets reports a drive of approximately 38.5m W (-99º) on Sol 1283. Not enough NavCams for the 360 mosaic yet...

[algorithm]

A partial NavCam anaglyph from Sol1283, a lot of transforming going on so a bit ropey in the extremeties

[elakdawalla]

I was trying to figure out the little hole in the sand sol1278 which seems to have been poked sometime between sol1276 and sol1277, from the MAHLI instrument?

If the MAHLI prongs made contact with anything, it would halt the motion of the arm. Holes are generally caused by ChemCam. Here's the before and the after.

[Sean]

Here is a quick stereo stitch for Sol 1283...


Sol-1283_001_NS_SBS_3DTV

[PaulH51]

Curiosity Mission Update from Ken Herkenhoff (March 16th) Sol 1284: Driving Across the Plateau

MSL drove almost 40 meters over the rough terrain on the Naukluft plateau, as planned, and again there are many interesting features near the rover. Many of the rocks appear to have been abraded by windblown sand, resulting in some bizarre shapes in places. The chemical and morphological diversity of these nearby rocks will be sampled before the rover drives toward the west on Sol 1284: ChemCam and Mastcam will observe outcrop targets named "Rooirand," "Grootberg," and "Gratzplatz." The Left Mastcam will also acquire mosaics of the outcrop around Rooirand and sedimentary structures to the south of the rover. After the drive, the usual post-drive imaging is planned, including a MARDI twilight image (my only responsibility today).

[jccwrt]

Here's the RMI mosaic. It's spectacular!



It looks like the mound in center foreground has had the entire right side blasted off. There's also a neat hoodoo-like feature hiding in the background at right, and you can get a better sense of its profile by its shadow on the cliff behind it. What a scene!

[Explorer1]

That damage would have been caused by an impact, right?

[jccwrt]

An impact was my first guess, but I can think of a couple other things that it might be. If a stream was running off Mt. Sharp, it might have undercut the mound and caused landslides until the slope stabilized at where we see it. It could also be a minor fault network that weakened that half of the mound and allowed it to erode more quickly. I'm not exactly sure where this mosaic was looking, but an orbital context shot would probably be useful in figuring out exactly what's going on.

[Sean]

Here is a Navcam left pano for Sol 1283...


Sol 1283 Navcam left Pano

[jvandriel]

The Navcam L view on Sol 1283.

Jan van Driel

[Phil Stooke]

Thanks, Jan - here is a circular view from sol 1283:



and a projection of the Hazcams for sol 1284:




Phil

[atomoid]

An impact was my first guess, but I can think of a couple other things that it might be. If a stream was running off Mt. Sharp, it might have undercut the mound and caused landslides until the slope stabilized at where we see it. It could also be a minor fault network that weakened that half of the mound and allowed it to erode more quickly. I'm not exactly sure where this mosaic was looking, but an orbital context shot would probably be useful in figuring out exactly what's going on.

incredibly impressive fantastic imagery, thanks. its such a good view from here i hope we get some m100s for follow-up.
One of the more striking ones is the vertical cliff (hoodoo?) and just love the little ripples in the foreground.
I was under the impression the current surface is tens(?) of meters underneath the layers of the final wet epochs, suggesting long term wind action as a cause of undermining the blasted-off hillside (all that detritus oblated to some other locale), but could just as much consider the blasted-off appearance to be a well-preserved relic of that original stream-erosion, itself only recently exhumed. It just looks so fresh, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere for all that to have gone but there may be plenty of room down there.

[fredk]

It is a very cool looking area. Here's a stereo view using the 1181 MR with the 1283 RMI. The baseline gives a pretty severe stereo effect. Anaglyph:

Cross-eyed:

The bright, nearly vertical face towards the back was mostly hiding behind a foreground knob in the MR view. There was another view on 1270, but that was only ML so it doesn't show much. There is a new MR view in the pipeline...

[PaulH51]

4Days, 4 Drives
1284 L-NavCam mosaic, roughly assembled in MS ICE, dimensions reduced to fit the upload limits

[PaulH51]

Curiosity Mission Update from Lauren Edgar, March 17th - Sol 1285: Still driving across the Naukluft Plateau

Curiosity is still working her way across the Naukluft Plateau. On Sol 1284 Curiosity drove ~27 m, which brings our total traverse distance to ~12,549 m. Today’s plan is fairly straightforward. In the morning, Curiosity will acquire Mastcam and ChemCam on targets named “Mulden” and “Koigab” to characterize the bedrock that we’ve been driving over. We’ll also take a Mastcam mosaic to investigate the local stratigraphy. Then Curiosity will continue driving towards the northwest, and will take post-drive imaging to prepare for contact science over the weekend. Early the next morning, Curiosity will take several Navcam, Mastcam, and ChemCam observations to monitor the atmospheric composition and opacity and search for clouds. I’ll be on duty tomorrow as GSTL, so I’m looking forward to planning some contact science!