NASA’s Curiosity rover has entered a Martian valley covered by an astonishing “sea” of tiny polygon-shaped fractures. The honeycomb patterns, each only a few inches wide, stretch across the landscape and even wrap around a nearby 20-foot-tall butte.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has entered a Martian valley covered by an astonishing “sea” of tiny polygon-shaped fractures. The honeycomb patterns, each only a few inches wide, stretch across the landscape and even wrap around a nearby 20-foot-tall butte.

  • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    Does that mean this mountain could be a volcano?

    Billions of years ago, lakes and streams were scattered across the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been climbing since 2014.

    Also has this rover been climbing the same mountain for 12 years? How close is it to the top?

    • tb_@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      14 minutes ago

      The rover’s speed is measured in meters per day I’m pretty sure, it goes at a very slow pace.

      Edit: yes. Given tests I imagine it frequently travels a lot less than that.

      Based on variables including power levels, terrain difficulty, slippage and visibility, the maximum terrain-traverse speed is estimated to be 200 m (660 ft) per day by automatic navigation.

      Further edit: NASA has an interactive map of its journey so far, neat.
      https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity/location-map/