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Curiosity is currently investigating “Whitebark Pass” (sounds like an ice cream flavor, right?), and we have a variety of rock textures and colors in our work area. We spent the weekend at this location, investigating some light-colored, pitted debris and the gray, friable material lining the slab. Then there was the slab itself, and some bright white debris that we crushed with our rover wheels that caught our attention. The Navcam image above shows the rover arm doing a close-up inspection of the slab.
Today’s 2-day sol plan includes another contact science and a lot of targeted remote sensing. Essentially, the team is asking to try to scoop up a spoonful of the tan stuff, put some gray stuff on the side, and add crumbly white debris as they go. This means the team plans to use DRT, MAHLI, and APXS on “Gem Lake” to investigate the top of this slab, MAHLI and APXS hovering over “Convict Lake” to assess the white rocks crushed by the rover’s wheels, and MAHLI Dog’s Eye Mosaic on “Starr Spire” to look in detail at textures in the gray material. Then we add some ChemCam and Mastcam activity in the targeted remote sensing block. The team plans to use ChemCam LIBS on some different textures at “Cold Spring” and “Fish Gut Lake” (hmm, maybe I’ll skip that flavor…) and ChemCam passive observations on “Quarry Peak” to assess the nearby light-colored slab. The team also plans to conduct a long-range ChemCam RMI survey to investigate the distribution of light-colored debris at “Camp IV.” Multiple Mastcam mosaics are planned to document ChemCam targets, monitor change detection areas, characterize textural diversity, and assess stratigraphic relationships. In addition, we plan to conduct environmental monitoring activities including Navcam line-of-sight observations, Mastcam tau, Navcam deck monitoring, and dust devil surveys, in addition to standard DAN and REMS observations.
You’d think we’d be full by now, but the team was already making plans for what else we could eat before driving off. That’s a sure sign of a delicious workspace.
By Lauren Edgar, Planetary Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center
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