A Different Perspective on Mirador Butte Sols 3473-3475

by Susanne Schwenzer | Planetary Geologist - The Open University Milton Keynes UK (JPL) May 13, 2022 JPL

We drove just over 30 metres in the last plan, reaching today's location. If you look closely at the last blog's image you can locate the block in front of us today in the distance of that image. But it's tricky if you are not used to looking at landscapes in different perspectives.

The almost rectangular block in the upper middle of today's navigation camera image can be seen in the upper left part of yesterday's blog's image. There was lots of discussion today, if this is a block that came from the pediment or not, and the team decided that it looked like it did not.

Regular readers of this blog will remember how difficult climbing in this terrain is. So, there will be ChemCam observations on this rock on target "Rupununi" doing a LIBS and extended RMI imaging, but Curiosity will not attempt to climb uphill to reach it.

APXS will be investigating two targets "Pedra Pintada" and "San Pedro." San Pedro will be brushed, also be investigated by ChemCam LIBS. ChemCam will also do a long distance RMI on sedimentary structures in the distance.

Mastcam is very busy in this interesting landscape, whereby the biggest targeted mosaic will get us a new view of Mirador Butte. There will be a mosaic on the hill just off at a distance, now called "Sierra Maigualida," which will tell us more about the textures of the uppermost unit of the hill. On target "La Paragua," Mastcam will document more of the interesting structures.

Closer to the rover, Mastcam will investigate "San Pedro" with a multispectral observation and have a stereo look at an interesting diagenetic feature just to the side of our workspace called "Tapir."

On another note, our environment and atmosphere group keeps monitoring the atmosphere with observations of atmosphere opacity each sol of the plan. As one would on Earth, we are watching the weather, that's a topic that we particularly like over here in Britain.

It's a little dusty at Gale (and rainy here in Britain) and Curiosity is headed uphill after which ChemCam will do a LIBS AEGIS investigation and there will of course be our usual post drive imaging to prepare for the next planning.