[meteorite-list] Latest Selfie from NASA Mars Rover Shows Wide Context

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2015 17:40:29 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201502250140.t1P1eTFj014301_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4489

Latest Selfie from NASA Mars Rover Shows Wide Context
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 24, 2015

-- The latest self-portrait covers the key "Pahrump Hills" sites

-- Taken beside January's "Mojave" drilling site, the image also shows
the mission's next planned drilling site

A sweeping view of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity
rover has been working for five months, surrounds the rover in Curiosity's
latest self-portrait.

The selfie scene is assembled from dozens of images taken by the Mars
Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the rover's robotic arm.

Pahrump Hills is an outcrop of the bedrock that forms the basal layer
of Mount Sharp, at the center of Mars' Gale Crater. The mission has examined
the outcrop with a campaign that included a "walkabout" survey and then
increasingly detailed levels of inspection. The rover climbed from the
outcrop's base to higher sections three times to create vertical profiles
of the rock structures and chemistry, and to select the best targets for
sample-collection drilling.

The component images for this self-portrait were taken in late January,
while Curiosity was at a drilling site called "Mojave 2." At that site,
the mission collected its second drilled sample of Pahrump Hills for
laboratory analysis. The first sample was collected in September from
a site called "Confidence Hills." Since leaving the Mojave site, Curiosity
has driven to another location visible in the scene, where drilling at
a site called "Telegraph Peak" is planned.

Curiosity took previous self-portraits with the MAHLI camera at three
sites it explored before reaching the base of Mount Sharp.

"Compared with the earlier Curiosity selfies, we added extra frames for
this one so we could see the rover in the context of the full Pahrump
Hills campaign," said rover team member Kathryn Stack at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "From the Mojave site, we could include
every stop we've made during the campaign."

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient
habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, developed, built and operates
MAHLI. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
in Washington.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity


Media Contact

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

2015-066
Received on Tue 24 Feb 2015 08:40:29 PM PST