On Monday (Sept. 18), NASA confirmed that, after three failed attempts, its Curiosity Mars rover managed to succeed in a precarious destination on the Red Planet: The Gediz Vallis Ridge.
As to why this formation was value such turmoil for Curiosity? Well, scientists imagine that three billion years ago, when Mars was much wetter than the arid land it’s now, powerful debris flows carried mud and boulders down the side of a mountain within the vicinity generally known as Mount Sharp. In line with NASA, this debris “spread right into a fan that was later eroded by wind right into a towering ridge.”
In practical terms, that backstory means this ridge holds proof of Mars’ blue past — and possibly more excitingly, information concerning the planet’s ancient, dangerous landslides.
“I can’t imagine what it could have been wish to witness these events,” geologist William Dietrich, a mission team member on the University of California, Berkeley, said in a press release. “Huge rocks were ripped out of the mountain high above, rushed downhill, and opened up right into a fan below. The outcomes of this campaign will push us to higher explain such events not only on Mars, but even on Earth, where they’re a natural hazard.”
The goal was reached on Aug. 14, or on the three,923rd Martian day (sol), of the mission. After settling in, Curiosity’s Mastcam took 136 individual images of the location that were stitched together to form a 360-degree panorama that was later color-enhanced for visual purposes.
Related: How NASA’s Curiosity rover overcame its steepest Mars climb yet (video)
An inviting string of red tape
To get to the Gediz Vallis Ridge, Curiosity needed to get past quite a couple of hurdles.
First, the rover had some trouble accessing this long-sought region on the Red Planet after scaling a spot in 2021 generally known as the Greenheugh Pediment, which scientists say was a tremendously difficult-to-climb rock formation.
Then, last yr, Curiosity bumped into some knife-edged “gator-back” rocks stippled along one other possible path to the ridge. The moniker “gator-back” comes from the very fact these rocks resemble scales on an alligator’s back. They’re believed to be fabricated from sandstone — which also made them the toughest variety of rock Curiosity had run into on Mars.
And earlier this yr, Curiosity faced one other setback on the option to Gediz Vallis after testing the Marker Band Valley. Getting out of Marker Band, NASA said on the time, was comparable to partaking in a Martian “slip-and-slide.” That whole ordeal left Curiosity in delicate shape.
The Curiosity team called GV Ridge “the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of Mt. Sharp,” in accordance with a mission update from earlier this yr. “We at the moment are just a couple of meters away from with the ability to reach the arm out and get contact science on a number of the ridge material, and anticipation is growing,” the update added.
But now, Curiosity has satisfied our curiosity.
“After three years, we finally found a spot where Mars allowed Curiosity to securely access the steep ridge,” Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said within the statement. “It’s a thrill to have the opportunity to succeed in out and touch rocks that were transported from places high up on Mount Sharp that we’ll never have the opportunity to go to with Curiosity.”
To the latter point, Curiosity was never meant to make the climb towards Mount Sharp’s peak, which implies dissecting rocks on the bottom that after stood on the formation’s apex is a uniquely necessary opportunity.
The rover has been exploring the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain since 2014, stumbling upon evidence of ancient streams and such along the way in which, NASA explained, but Gediz Vallis ridge was a complete latest area to analyze — and, in actual fact, the youngest section of the region.
What have we found?
In line with NASA, Curiosity spent 11 days on the ridge after its mid-August arrival. During this time, it photographed dark rocks within the region that “clearly originated elsewhere on the mountain,” in addition to others lower on the ridgeline, “some as large as cars.” These shards are expected to have come from higher places on Mount Sharp.
Curiosity’s Mastcam, in total, captured 136 images of the Gediz Vallis Ridge that were pieced together in a mosaic to form the 360-degree view.
Further, the team says, the rover offered scientists the first-ever up-close views of a geologic creature called a “debris flow fan,” which refers to a phenomenon where debris flowing down a slope spreads out right into a fan shape.
Curiosity has been traversing its planetary subject since 2012 as a part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission. Up to now, its journeys have taken it to incredible locations corresponding to the Gale Crater — a big impact divot with a layered mountain at its center — and (more adorably) this rock that looks like an open book.
With Gediz Vallis under its belt finally, Curiosity is headed to search out a path above the ridge to learn concerning the watery history of Mount Sharp.