Unfavorable Terrain for Crossing Near 'Logan Pass'

This view southeastward from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows terrain judged difficult for traversing between the rover and an outcrop in the middle distance where a pale rock unit meets a darker rock unit above it.

The Mastcam's left-eye camera captured the component images on May 10, 2015, during the 981st Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars.

This observation helped the rover team evaluate routes for driving to that geological contact area where the two rock units meet. The outcrop exposing the contact is in the eastern portion of the "Logan Pass" area. The windblown ripples and the steep ground where ripples are lacking are both poor terrain for the rover to cross. The team subsequently chose to approach a different site where the pale and darker rock units are in contact with each other. That alternative site is in the northern portion of the Logan Pass area, outside of this scene.

This panorama spans from east, at left, to south-southwest. The color has been approximately white-balanced to resemble how the scene would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth.

Figure 1 is version of this panorama annotated with two scale bars. The five-meter scale bar nearest the center is just below the geological contact. Five meters is about 16.4 feet. Scale bars of 10 meters (32.8 feet) and 50 centimeters (20 inches) are at mid-distance on the left and in the foreground on the right.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover's Mastcam. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project's Curiosity rover.

For more information about Curiosity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.