16 March 2015

Over the weekend, Curiosity bumped closer to the target “Garden City” located in “Artist’s Drive.” “Garden City” is an intriguing target because it contains a lot of really big veins, captured here in this Mastcam image from Sol 926.

Today’s plan is focused on characterizing “Garden City” and getting ready for contact science on Wednesday. The plan includes ChemCam observations on the targets “Ouray” and “Hoskinnini” to characterize the composition of the light and dark parts of the veins, as well as several Mastcam multispectral observations. There are also several Navcam and Mastcam activities to monitor atmospheric opacity and search for dust devils. Furthermore, this plan includes several important SAM activities to prepare for and analyze the previously acquired “Telegraph Peak” sample.

I’ll be the Geology Science Theme Lead on Wednesday so I dialed in to the planning meetings to prepare for what is shaping up to be a very busy day of arm activities!

By Lauren Edgar



--Lauren is a Research Geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center and a member of MSL science team.