Curiosity is continuing to climb towards a Gediz Vallis ridge viewing spot, and we can already get a glimpse of it rising in the distance. In today's plan we will collect a large stereo Mastcam mosaic of the parts of Gediz Vallis ridge that were visible to us today, and this image combined with the ones we hope to collect from our end of drive location on Monday, will help the team decide if we want to get even closer.

We're trying to understand how Gediz Vallis ridge formed, in particular what kind of watery settings may or may not have been involved. We also want to understand how it relates to the rest of the rocks that make up Mount Sharp and Gediz Vallis channel in order to better constrain when the events that built it happened.

We'll also spend the weekend investigating the area much closer to Curiosity. We'll be collecting Mastcam images of some rocks that have interesting textures that we unofficially named "Uruca," "Tikwah Mine," and "Prata." We're also snapping a photo of a large sand ridge that is right behind the rover, and ChemCam will zap two rock targets, "Cotingo," and "Boca da Mata," as well as an automatically selected target using the AEGIS software.

APXS and MAHLI will get in on the science action as well, with observations of targets named "Jutai" and "Raposa." We'll use the DRT to brush dust away from the Raposa target before the APXS and MAHLI observations, so we'll also take a Mastcam multispectral image of this less dusty area. Observations to model the environment around Curiosity and a 50 m drive will round out the plan.

Related Links
Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

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Losing the Rhythm - Sols 3648-3649
Pasadena CA (JPL) Nov 10, 2022
Curiosity was parked amongst beautiful, rhythmically layered bedrock in our previous workspace. The term rhythmic is used to describe fine scale, repeating layers that exhibit a uniform spacing and thickness. This bedrock was exposed just above the marker band that we had been investigating for several sols prior. The marker band has been mapped from orbit and appears to be a relatively continuous feature around Mount Sharp. We observed possible ripples in the marker band and the relationship betw ... read more