Curiosity team member Alex Bryke made the rendering using the same software the team uses to chart Curiosity’s path up Mount Sharp, which the rover has been climbing since 2014. Where Curiosity appears in this image, the ridge is estimated to be nearly 70 feet (21). meters) height. After spending August 14–25 on the ridge, Curiosity left for a longer drive over the mountain; The rover’s team will search for a path to the left side of the channel seen at the top of this image.
NASA
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover can be seen in this 3D rendering of the Geddis Wallis Ridge, which the mission’s science team has long sought to explore. It took four attempts over three years to finally reach the mountain in August 2023.
The rendering was created using scientific data and images captured from space by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Curiosity team member Alex Bryke made the rendering using the same software the team uses to chart Curiosity’s path up Mount Sharp, which the rover has been climbing since 2014.
Where Curiosity appears in this image, the ridge is estimated to be nearly 70 feet (21 meters) high. After spending August 14–25 on the ridge, Curiosity left for a longer drive over the mountain; The rover’s team will search for a path to the left side of the channel seen at the top of this image.
Caption: Drag your mouse around this 360-degree panorama captured by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. See the steep slopes, layered bands, and dark rocks surrounding Curiosity, anchored below the Geddys Wallis Ridge, which was formed as a result of violent debris flows and then eroded into a towering formation by wind. This happened about 3 billion years ago, during one of the last wet periods observed in this part of the Red Planet.
On August 19, 2023, Curiosity’s Mastcam took 136 images stitched together into this mosaic after being sent back to Earth. The color seen by the human eye on Earth is modified to match the lighting conditions.
The Gediz Vallis Ridge is one of the last features formed on the 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) Mount Sharp, which Curiosity has been climbing since 2014. The dark rocks that dot the landscape in this panorama may have been carried down from a height. On Mount Sharp, which Curiosity never attempted. Studying these rocks at the top of the mountain gives scientists a rare view of objects at the top of the mountain.
Curiosity spent 11 days on the ridge, arriving after one of the most difficult climbs the mission had ever encountered. It then set off to climb the mountain, where the rover will investigate the Gediz Vallis channel, through which water flowed about 3 billion years ago, carrying rocks and debris, to begin building the mountain.
Curiosity views Gediz Vallis Ridge
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree panorama while parked below the Geddis Wallis Ridge (mountain-like slope at right). After three attempts over a three-year period, the rover finally reached the mountain on its fourth attempt on August 14, 2023, the mission’s 3,923rd Martian day, or sol.
Astronomy