JPL
Careers
Education
Science & Technology
JPL Logo
JPL Logo
Solar System .

Curiosity Rover Report: Rover Walkabout

Feb 12, 2015

Your browser cannot play the provided video file(s).

Curiosity wraps up an investigation at Pink Cliffs while trying out a style of exploration used by geologists on Earth called "the walkabout."

Transcript:

Hi, I'm Aileen Yingst.

I'm the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Mars Hand Lens Imager and this is your Curiosity Rover Report.

For the past several months, Curiosity has been exploring an area called Pahrump Hills. Up until now, we've been using a linear approach. We always go forward, we don't go back. This allows us to cover the most territory in the least amount of time. That's not how a typical geologist would do it on Earth.

On Earth, we'd use a walkabout. That is we'd walk the site first to get a better idea of what it looks like and use that information to pick the best places for us to do our science. That's what we've done at Pahrump Hills.

Curiosity is our robotic avatar on Mars and as such, she uses her instruments in much the same way we would use our eyes and our hands during a walkabout.

She has her cameras on the mast that allow us to get an idea of the area around us. We can use that information to pick a good site for contact science.

Once we have that, we can use the MAHLI and the APXS to decide if that site is a good site to take a sample, which we can then put into our onboard laboratory.

This more traditional approach has really allowed my camera MAHLI to shine. And I mean that literally because MAHLI has her own light source. Two banks of LEDs allow us to illuminate a target in any way and from any angle we choose including letting us take images at night.

Daytime images showed us some things but nighttime images were even better because they illuminated features that were all but lost in the changing glare of the sun. You can see one bank and then the other of the MAHLI LEDs come on in these images.

This outcrop called "Pink Cliffs", which is an area of interest for us because it has blade shaped crystals in it. These might've formed when water came through and left behind the chemicals for these crystals to form and grow. MAHLI is the perfect instrument for us to get a great look at these features.

The walkabout at this point is now a tool in our toolbox that we can use as we continue our climb up Mount Sharp.

This is Aileen Yingst and this has been your Curiosity rover report. Be sure to check back for more updates.

Download m4v

Related Pages

News .

NASA’s Deep Space Network Welcomes a New Dish to the Family

News .

6 Things to Know About NASA’s Mars Helicopter on Its Way to Mars

News .

NASA to Host Virtual Briefing on February Perseverance Mars Rover Landing

News .

NASA InSight’s ‘Mole’ Ends Its Journey on Mars

News .

Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover to Capture Sounds From the Red Planet

News .

NASA’s Juno Mission Expands Into the Future

Image .

Juno's Mission Goes On

Topic .

Solar System

News .

NASA’s Curiosity Rover Reaches Its 3,000th Day on Mars

News .

Celebrate the Perseverance Rover Landing With NASA's Student Challenge

About JPL
Who We Are
Executive Council
Directors of JPL
JPL History
Documentary Series
Virtual Tour
Annual Reports
Missions
All
Current
Past
Future
News
All
Earth
Mars
Solar System
Universe
Technology
Galleries
Images
Videos
Audio
Podcasts
Infographics
Engage
JPL and the Community
Lecture Series
Public Tours
Events
Team Competitions
JPL Speakers Bureau
Topics
Solar System
Mars
Earth
Climate Change
Stars and Galaxies
Exoplanets
Technology
JPL Life
For Media
Contacts and Information
Press Kits
More
Asteroid Watch
Robotics at JPL
Subscribe to Newsletter
Social Media
Get the Latest from JPL
Follow Us

JPL is a federally funded research and development center managed for NASA by Caltech.

More from JPL
Careers Education Science & Technology Acquisitions JPL Store
Careers
Education
Science & Technology
Acquisitions
JPL Store
Related NASA Sites
Basics of Spaceflight
Climate Kids
Earth / Global Climate Change
Exoplanet Exploration
Mars Exploration
Solar System Exploration
Space Place
NASA's Eyes Visualization Project
Voyager Interstellar Mission
NASA
Caltech
Privacy
Image Policy
FAQ
Feedback
Site Manager: Veronica McGregor
Site Editors: Tony Greicius, Randal Jackson, Naomi Hartono