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Curiosity Views Rhythmic Rock Layers

Feb. 8, 2023
NASA's Curiosity rover captured this image of rhythmic rock layers with a repetitive pattern in their spacing and thickness. The pattern might have been caused by weather or climate cycles, such as dust storms happening at regular intervals.
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NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this image of rhythmic rock layers with a repetitive pattern in their spacing and thickness. The pattern might have been caused by weather or climate cycles occurring while the sediment layers were being deposited, such as dust storms happening at regular intervals in the ancient past.

This mosaic is made up of 17 individual images captured in the "Marker Band" area by Curiosity's Mastcam on Nov. 7, 2022, the 3,646th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The mosaic was captured by Mastcam's 34-millimeter-focal-length camera.

Figure A, which has a higher resolution, shows the same rock layers in 17 images taken by Mastcam's 100-millimeter-focal-length camera.

Curiosity was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.

For more about Curiosity, visit http://mars.nasa.gov/msl or https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html.

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