The Mars rover Curiosity has finally reached the base of Mount Sharp, the Kilimanjaro-sized mountain it has been driving toward for much of the past two years.
'We have finally arrived at the far frontier we have sought for so long,' said project scientist John Grotzinger at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in a press teleconference on 11 September. 'This is where the core of the science mission really begins.'
The rover touched down on the Red Planet in August 2012 in a region called Gale Crater, which was selected largely because of the 5-kilometre-high mountain at its centre. Mount Sharp (also known as Aeolis Mons) contains clays and sulphate minerals that don't form in dry conditions, suggesting that its layers of sediment were laid down in an ancient lake that filled the crater billions of years ago. That would make it a good site for the rover's primary mission: seeking signs that Mars may once have been hospitable to life.
But the first thing the rover did after landing was drive in the other direction. The science team was following hints that another region, called Yellowknife Bay, might have promising chemistry. 'We hit the jackpot there,' Grotzinger says. The region hosted rocky outcrops that were laid down by a flowing river, making it the first habitable environment discovered on Mars.
The team then turned the rover's wheels back to Mount Sharp, and it has been driving essentially ever since, with a few drilling stops along the way. So far Curiosity has covered more than 8 kilometres - and has seen some serious wear and tear on its wheels.
Now, the team says, the rover has finally arrived at the base of Mount Sharp. To spare the wheels, they will modify the planned route through the Pahrump Hills, - a landscape of buttes and scarps - and expect to begin drilling the mountain's layers within a week.
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)A rock called Bonanza King, which Curiosity tried to drill in late August, has already given them a preview of what they might find. The rock was too unstable to complete the drilling, but clearing the red dust off its surface revealed the same greenish-grey rock that proved fruitful at Yellowknife Bay. Compared with other Martian rocks studied, it also contained a lot of silica, which forms in water and is often associated with preservation of organic matter on Earth.
'We're excited about it because it does go in the right direction for us,' Grotzinger says. 'It means we're on to something new and we're optimistic that we are going to be able to talk about a science story in the next few months that involves water.'
The long trek to Mount Sharp may have prompted some harsh words from a NASA review committee last week, which questioned whether the rover has been doing enough science to justify its $2.5 million price tag. But Grotzinger says the team intends to carry on with the current plan, using the drill judiciously to test hypotheses, not just to see what's there.
'The principal recommendation of the panel is that we drive less and drill more,' Grotzinger says. 'I think that the recommendations of the review and what we want to do as a science team are going to align. We've now arrived at Mount Sharp, and we are going to do a lot more drilling.'
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19:00 11 September 2014
Entities 0 Name: Mount Sharp Count: 6 1 Name: Grotzinger Count: 4 2 Name: Yellowknife Bay Count: 2 3 Name: Pasadena Count: 1 4 Name: Aeolis Mons Count: 1 5 Name: Gale Crater Count: 1 6 Name: NASA Count: 1 7 Name: California Institute of Technology Count: 1 8 Name: John Grotzinger Count: 1 9 Name: Earth Count: 1 10 Name: Pahrump Hills Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1pUK2QP Title: After a Two-Year Trek, NASA's Mars Rover Reaches Its Mountain Lab Description: After two years of Mars enthusiasts asking, "Are we there yet?" the mission managers for NASA 's Curiosity rover can finally yell back, "Yes, we're there!" The Curiosity rover has reached the destination where it will begin its main science investigations, the base of a three-mile-high mountain that the science team has named Mount Sharp.
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