A LOOK AT YELLOWKNIFE BAY ON MARS

FROM:  NASA  
Yellowknife Bay Formation on Mars

This mosaic of images from Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) shows geological members of the Yellowknife Bay formation. The scene has the Sheepbed mudstone in the foreground and rises up through Gillespie Lake member to the Point Lake outcrop. These rocks record superimposed ancient lake and stream deposits that offered past environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. Rocks here were exposed about 70 million years ago by removal of overlying layers due to erosion by the wind.

The scene is a portion of a 111-image mosaic acquired during the 137th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Dec. 24, 2012). The foothills of Mount Sharp are visible in the distance, upper left, southwest of camera position.  Image Credit: NASA-JPL-Caltech-MSSS

CHEMCAM EXCEEDS 100.000 SHOTS ON MARS

Curiosity Heads To Mars.  Credit:  NASA

FROM:  LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Los Alamos’s ChemCam team fills scrapbook from Mars road trip

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Dec. 5, 2013—The ChemCam laser instrument aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover fired its 100,000th shot recently, chronicling its adventures on Mars with a coffee-table-book’s worth of spectral data that might rival snapshots gathered during a long and satisfying family vacation here on Earth. ChemCam zaps rocks with a high-powered laser to determine their composition and carries a camera that can survey the Martian landscape.

“ChemCam has greatly exceeded our expectations,” said Roger Wiens, Los Alamos National Laboratory planetary scientist and Principal Investigator of the ChemCam Team. “The information we’ve gleaned from the instrument will continue to enhance our understanding of the Red Planet, and will nicely complement information from the other nine instruments aboard Curiosity as we continue our odyssey to Mount Sharp.”

Curiosity landed on Mars at the edge of Gale Crater near the base of Mount Sharp on Aug. 6, 2012. The rover is a rolling laboratory about the size of a small SUV that will roam the Martian landscape for at least another year in search of clues about the planet’s habitability. Using a suite of 10 instruments that can perform diverse and amazing tasks ranging from digging up and baking soil samples, to shooting rocks with pinpoint accuracy with a high-powered laser, Curiosity already has helped show scientists that Mars apparently once had a very wet history and still retains enough moisture in its dust and rocks to quench the thirst of future astronauts.

Curiosity’s laser instrument, ChemCam, fires a short laser burst that packs the wallop of nearly one million light bulbs into a single pinpoint of light to vaporize rock and dust. A camera aboard the instrument reads the spectral signature of the resultant flash and translates the information into the composition of whatever happened to be in ChemCam’s crosshairs at the moment. The instrument also has a camera that scientists have been using to survey the Martian landscape.

The ChemCam concept was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but the instrument aboard Curiosity is a partnership between Los Alamos and the French national space agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and research agency, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

The U.S. operations center for the ChemCam team is located in downtown Los Alamos. Wiens said a teleprompter showing the latest slideshows from Mars will soon be erected in downtown Los Alamos for public viewing.

“Like those family slideshows from summer vacations along Route 66, people will be able to enjoy and experience the highlights of our trip,” Wiens said. “ChemCam was designed to fire one million shots, so we’ll have lots of stories to tell later on.”

WATER WORLD MARS

FROM:  LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Water for Future Mars Astronauts?

Diversity of Martian soils leaves Los Alamos scientists thirsty for more

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 26, 2013—Within its first three months on Mars, NASA’s Curiosity Rover saw a surprising diversity of soils and sediments along a half-kilometer route that tell a complex story about the gradual desiccation of the Red Planet.

Perhaps most notable among findings from the ChemCam team is that all of the dust and fine soil contains small amounts of water.

“We made this discovery literally with the very first laser shot on the Red Planet,” said Roger Wiens, leader of the ChemCam instrument team. “Every single time we shot at dust we saw a significant hydrogen peak.”

In a series of five papers covering the rover’s top discoveries during its first three months on Mars that appear today in the journal Science, Los Alamos researchers using the rover’s ChemCam instrument team up with an international cadre of scientists affiliated with the CheMin, APXS, and SAM instruments to describe the planet’s seemingly once-volcanic and aquatic history.

Researchers believed the hydrogen seen in the dust was coming from water, a hypothesis that was later corroborated by Curiosity’s SAM instrument, which indicated that all of the soil encountered on Mars contains between 1.5 and 3 percent water. This quantity is enough to explain much of the near-equatorial hydrogen observed beginning in 2001 by Los Alamos’s neutron spectrometer on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

ChemCam also showed that the soils consist of two distinct components. In addition to extremely fine-grained particles that seem to be representative of the ubiquitous Martian dust covering the entire planet’s surface like the fine film that collects on the undisturbed surfaces of a long-abandoned home, the ChemCam team discovered coarser-grained particles up to one millimeter in size that reflected the composition of local rocks. In essence, ChemCam observed the process of rocks being ground down to soil over time.

The ChemCam instrument—which vaporizes material with a high-powered laser and reads the resultant plasma with a spectrometer—has shown a similar composition to fine-grained dust characterized on other parts of the planet during previous Martian missions. ChemCam tested more than 100 targets in a location named Rocknest and found that the dust contained consistent amounts of water regardless of the sampling area.

What’s more, the Rover dug into the soils at Rocknest to provide scientists with the opportunity to sample the newly unearthed portion over the course of several Martian days. The instrument measured roughly the same tiny concentration of water (about 2 percent) in the surface soils as it did in the freshly uncovered soil, and the newly excavated area did not dry out over time—as would be expected if moist subsurface material were uncovered.

The water signature seen by Curiosity in the ubiquitous Martian dust may coincide with the tiny amount of ambient humidity in the planet’s arid atmosphere. Multiple observations indicate that the flowing water responsible for shaping and moving the rounded pebbles encountered in the vicinity of the rover landing area has long since been lost to space, though some of it may still exist deep below the surface of the planet at equatorial locations (water ice is known to exist near the surface at the poles).

Despite the seemingly small measurements of water in the Martian environment, the findings nevertheless are exciting.

“In principle it would be possible for future astronauts to heat the soil to derive water to sustain them,” said Wiens.

While at Rocknest, scientists were also able to test samples that had been characterized by ChemCam with two other instruments aboard the rover: CheMin, a miniaturized apparatus partially developed at Los Alamos that uses X-rays to determine the composition of materials; and SAM, a tiny oven that melts samples and identifies the composition of gases given off by them. The analyses by all three instruments indicate that Mars likely has a volcanic history that shaped the surface of the planet.

A fourth instrument, the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), provides additional insights into the volcanic diversity on Mars. APXS analyzed a rock called Jake Matijevic—named in honor of a deceased Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars engineer—and found that it is one of the most Earth-like rocks yet seen on the Red Planet. The rock’s enrichment in sodium, giving it a feldspar-rich mineral content, makes it very similar to some rocks erupted on ocean islands on Earth. ChemCam contributed to the characterization of Jake_M.

The Curiosity Rover is scheduled to explore Mars for another year at least. In the coming months, Curiosity will travel to Mount Sharp, a towering peak nearly three miles in elevation. Mount Sharp appears to contain layers of sedimentary history dating back several billion years. These layers are like pages of a book that could teach researchers much about the geologic and climate history of the Red Planet.

SOLAR ECLIPSE OBSERVED FROM MARS

FROM:  NASA 
Annular Eclipse of the Sun by Phobos, as Seen by Curiosity

This set of three images shows views three seconds apart as the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, passed directly in front of the sun as seen by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.  Curiosity photographed this annular, or ring, eclipse with the telephoto-lens camera of the rover's Mast Camera pair (right Mastcam) on Aug. 17, 2013, the 369th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars. Curiosity paused during its drive that sol for a set of observations that the camera team carefully calculated to record this celestial event. The rover's observations of Phobos help make researchers' knowledge of the moon's orbit even more precise.  Because this eclipse occurred near mid-day at Curiosity's location on Mars, Phobos was nearly overhead loser to the rover than it would have been earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon. This timing made Phobos' silhouette larger against the sun -- as close to a total eclipse of the sun as is possible from Mars. › Related release Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ.

MARS SCIENCE TEAM TOUTS CHEMCAM DATA



This image shows the ChemCam mast unit mounted on the Curiosity rover as it is being prepared in the clean room prior to the launch of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. ChemCam fires a powerful laser that can sample Martian rocks and provide critical clues about the Red Planet's habitability. (Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory)

FROM: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
ChemCam Data Abundant at Planetary Conference
Laser instrument aboard Curiosity rover provides well over 40,000 shots so far

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., March 15, 2013—Members of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover ChemCam team will present more than two dozen posters and talks next week during the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

"ChemCam has performed flawlessly in its first six months, providing more than a gigabyte of exciting new information about the Red Planet," said Los Alamos National Laboratory planetary scientist Roger Wiens, Principal Investigator of the ChemCam Team. "Since Curiosity’s successful landing on Mars on August 6, 2012, ChemCam has fired more than 40,000 shots at more than a thousand different locations with its high-powered laser. Each of those shots has yielded exciting information about the Martian habitat, and our team has been extremely busy making sense of what we’re seeing in anticipation of presenting it to planetary scientists and the public. The Curiosity mission continues to amaze us with new discoveries, finding Mars to be very Earth-like in many ways."

The ChemCam team’s work will be showcased during a series of special sessions at the conference on Monday and during a blitz of poster sessions on Tuesday. The international team of researchers will provide everything from a geological tour of the Martian landscape during the first six months of the SUV-sized rover’s cross-country journey, to investigations of the dusty coating that covers every Martian rock, to a discussion of how scientists used calibration targets mounted on the rover to fine tune differences between spectral readings taken on Earth and on Mars.

ChemCam team member Nina Lanza was selected by conference organizers to chronicle her experiences as a presenter and a conference attendee through microblogging activities all week. Lanza will provide commentary and highlights of each day’s events through her Twitter feed (@marsninja).

The ChemCam system is one of 10 instruments mounted on the Curiosity rover—a six-wheeled mobile laboratory that will roam more than 12 miles of the planet’s surface during the course of one Martian year (98 Earth weeks). ChemCam can fire an extremely powerful laser pulse up to 23 feet onto an area the size of a pinhead. The laser vaporizes a tiny portion of the target. A spectrometer then translates the spectral colors of the plasma into the chemical composition of the vaporized material.

The ChemCam team is comprised of researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and the French space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, as well as other researchers from the U.S., France, Canada, and the United Kingdom. ChemCam operations are now commanded from centers at Los Alamos and Toulouse, France.

DRILLING ON MARS VIDEO

FROM: NASA
Drilling into Mars

This animation of NASA's Curiosity rover shows the complicated suite of operations involved in conducting the rover's first rock sample drilling on Mars and transferring the sample to the rover's scoop for inspection. The drilling and sample transfer took place on Feb. 8 and 20, 2013, or sols 182 and 193, Curiosity's 182nd and 193rd Martian days of operations.

MARS IS A GOOD SOURCE OF CALCIUM

FROM: NASA

Curiosity Finds Calcium-Rich Deposits
NASA’s Curiosity rover finds calcium deposits on Mars similar to those seen on Earth when water circulates in cracks and rock fractures.

Credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech

CURRENT STATUS OF THE MARS ROVER MISSION



The NASA Mars rover Curiosity used its left Navigation Camera to record this view of the step down into a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." Image credit: NASA-JPL-Caltech

FROM: NASA

Mission status report

PASADENA, Calif. -- The NASA Mars rover Curiosity this week is driving within a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay," providing information to help researchers choose a rock to drill.

Using Curiosity's percussive drill to collect a sample from the interior of a rock, a feat never before attempted on Mars, is the mission's priority for early 2013. After the powdered-rock sample is sieved and portioned by a sample-processing mechanism on the rover's arm, it will be analyzed by instruments inside Curiosity.

Yellowknife Bay is within a different type of terrain from what the rover has traversed since landing inside Mars' Gale Crater on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug. 6, UTC). The terrain Curiosity has entered is one of three types that intersect at a location dubbed "Glenelg," chosen as an interim destination about two weeks after the landing.

Curiosity reached the lip of a 2-foot (half-meter) descent into Yellowknife Bay with a 46-foot (14-meter) drive on Dec. 11. The next day, a drive of about 86 feet (26.1 meters) brought the rover well inside the basin. The team has been employing the Mast Camera (Mastcam) and the laser-wielding Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) for remote-sensing studies of rocks along the way.

On Dec. 14, Curiosity drove about 108 feet (32.8 meters) to reach rock targets of interest called "Costello" and "Flaherty." Researchers used the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) at the end of the rover's arm to examine the targets. After finishing those studies, the rover drove again on Dec. 17, traveling about 18 feet (5.6 meters) farther into Yellowknife Bay. That brings the mission's total driving distance to 0.42 mile (677 meters) since Curiosity's landing.

One additional drive is planned this week before the rover team gets a holiday break. Curiosity will continue studying the Martian environment from its holiday location at the end point of that drive within Yellowknife Bay. The mission's plans for most of 2013 center on driving toward the primary science destination, a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer) layered mound called Mount Sharp.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity during a two-year prime mission to assess whether areas inside Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment for microbes. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

THE MOUNTAIN WINDS OF MARS

 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS

FROM: NASA

Mountain Winds at Gale Crater
This graphic shows the pattern of winds predicted to be swirling around and inside Gale Crater, which is where NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars. Modeling the winds gives scientists a context for the data from Curiosity's Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS).

Curiosity's current location is marked with an "X." The rover's setting within a broad depression between the mountain dubbed "Mount Sharp" to the southeast and the rim of Gale Crater to the northwest strongly affects wind measurements collected by REMS.

This snapshot shows midday conditions. In the daytime, winds rise out of the crater, shown by the red arrows, and up the mountain, shown by the yellow arrows. Blue arrows indicate winds that flow along the depression and seem, to Curiosity, to be coming up out of the depression since Curiosity is near the bottom. At its current location, Curiosity may be seeing a mixture of these winds, making it challenging to understand its weather readings.

The patterns reverse in the evening and overnight, when winds flow in the downhill direction.

The background image is an oblique view of Gale Crater, looking toward the southeast. It is an artist's impression using two-fold vertical exaggeration to emphasize the area's topography. The crater's diameter is 96 miles (154 kilometers).

The image combines elevation data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, image data from the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and color information from Viking Orbiter imagery.

MARS SMELLS

FROM: NASA

 
SAM Sniffs the Martian Atmosphere

NASA's Curiosity rover uses SAM to make the most sensitive measurements ever to search for methane gas on the red planet

ROVER STUFF OR MARTIAN METAL? THE SHINY THING?

View of Curiosity's First Scoop Also Shows Bright Object
This image from the right Mast Camera (Mastcam) of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows a scoop full of sand and dust lifted by the rover's first use of the scoop on its robotic arm. In the foreground, near the bottom of the image, a bright object is visible on the ground. The object might be a piece of rover hardware.

This image was taken during the mission's 61st Martian day, or sol (Oct. 7, 2012), the same sol as the first scooping. After examining Sol 61 imaging, the rover team decided to refrain from using the arm on Sol 62 (Oct. 8). Instead, the rover was instructed to acquire additional imaging of the bright object, on Sol 62, to aid the team in assessing possible impact, if any, to sampling activities.

For scale, the scoop is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide, 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) long.
Image credit-NASA-JPL-Caltech-MSSS

 

WHERE WATER RAN ON MARS

FROM: NASA
Link to a Watery Past
In this image from NASA's Curiosity rover, a rock outcrop called Link pops out from a Martian surface that is elsewhere blanketed by reddish-brown dust. The fractured Link outcrop has blocks of exposed, clean surfaces. Rounded gravel fragments, or clasts, up to a couple inches (few centimeters) in size are in a matrix of white material. Many gravel-sized rocks have eroded out of the outcrop onto the surface, particularly in the left portion of the frame. The outcrop characteristics are consistent with a sedimentary conglomerate, or a rock that was formed by the deposition of water and is composed of many smaller rounded rocks cemented together. Water transport is the only process capable of producing the rounded shape of clasts of this size.

The Link outcrop was imaged with the 100-millimeter Mast Camera on Sept. 2, 2012, which was the 27th sol, or Martian day of operations.

The name Link is derived from a significant rock formation in the Northwest Territories of Canada, where there is also a lake with the same name.

Scientists enhanced the color in this version to show the Martian scene as it would appear under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
　

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence -- images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels -- is the first of its kind.

Scientists are studying the images of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock. The sizes and shapes of stones offer clues to the speed and distance of a long-ago stream's flow.

"From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep," said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. "Plenty of papers have been written about channels on Mars with many different hypotheses about the flows in them. This is the first time we're actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it."

The finding site lies between the north rim of Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater. Earlier imaging of the region from Mars orbit allows for additional interpretation of the gravel-bearing conglomerate. The imagery shows an alluvial fan of material washed down from the rim, streaked by many apparent channels, sitting uphill of the new finds.

The rounded shape of some stones in the conglomerate indicates long-distance transport from above the rim, where a channel named Peace Vallis feeds into the alluvial fan. The abundance of channels in the fan between the rim and conglomerate suggests flows continued or repeated over a long time, not just once or for a few years.

The discovery comes from examining two outcrops, called "Hottah" and "Link," with the telephoto capability of Curiosity's mast camera during the first 40 days after landing. Those observations followed up on earlier hints from another outcrop, which was exposed by thruster exhaust as Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory Project's rover, touched down.

"Hottah looks like someone jack-hammered up a slab of city sidewalk, but it's really a tilted block of an ancient streambed," said Mars Science Laboratory Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

The gravels in conglomerates at both outcrops range in size from a grain of sand to a golf ball. Some are angular, but many are rounded.

"The shapes tell you they were transported and the sizes tell you they couldn't be transported by wind. They were transported by water flow," said Curiosity science co-investigator Rebecca Williams of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz.

The science team may use Curiosity to learn the elemental composition of the material, which holds the conglomerate together, revealing more characteristics of the wet environment that formed these deposits. The stones in the conglomerate provide a sampling from above the crater rim, so the team may also examine several of them to learn about broader regional geology.

The slope of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater remains the rover's main destination. Clay and sulfate minerals detected there from orbit can be good preservers of carbon-based organic chemicals that are potential ingredients for life.

"A long-flowing stream can be a habitable environment," said Grotzinger. "It is not our top choice as an environment for preservation of organics, though. We're still going to Mount Sharp, but this is insurance that we have already found our first potentially habitable environment."

During the two-year prime mission of the Mars Science Laboratory, researchers will use Curiosity's 10 instruments to investigate whether areas in Gale Crater have ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, built Curiosity and manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

WMARS RADIO

Photo:  Mars Rover.  Image Credit:  NASA
FROM: NASA
Curiosity Rover Plays First Song Transmitted From Another Planet

PASADENA -- For the first time in history, a recorded song has been beamed back to Earth from another planet. Students, special guests and news media gathered at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., today to hear "Reach for the Stars" by musician will.i.am after it was transmitted from the surface of Mars by the Curiosity rover.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden addressed the crowd in a video message encouraging students to study science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). "Mars has always fascinated us, and the things Curiosity tells us about it will help us learn about whether or not life was possible there," Bolden said. "And what future human explorers can expect. will.i.am has provided the first song on our playlist of Mars exploration."

In opening remarks, NASA Associate Administrator for Education and space shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin said, "I can think of no greater way to honor NASA pioneer Neil Armstrong's life and legacy than to inspire today's students to follow his path. That first footprint that Neil placed on the lunar surface left an indelible mark in history. Perhaps one of our students here today or watching on NASA Television will be the first to set foot on the surface of Mars and continue humanity's quest to explore."

Musician and entrepreneur will.i.am shared his thoughts about "Reach for the Stars" becoming the first interplanetary song and an anthem for NASA education. The entertainer is a well-known advocate of science and technology education. He said, "Today is about inspiring young people to lead a life without limits placed on their potential and to pursue collaboration between humanity and technology through STEAM education. I know my purpose is to inspire young people, because they will keep inspiring me back."

After completing a journey of more than 300 million miles from Earth to Mars and back, the opening orchestral strains of "Reach for the Stars" filled the auditorium. The event added to continuing worldwide interest in Curiosity's mission.

NASA engineers spoke to attendees about the Curiosity mission, and the systems engineering and orbital mechanics involved in getting the song file back from Mars. Students had the opportunity to ask questions of all program participants. Earlier in the day, students received a guided tour of JPL to view rover models and learn about STEM career options.

During the event, will.i.am's i.am angel Foundation and Discovery Education announced a $10 million classroom education initiative that will reach 25 million students annually, including many from underserved communities. Focused on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) educational themes, the Discovery Education initiative will incorporate NASA content and space exploration themes as part of the curriculum.

INVASION MARS CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This is one of the first full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover's "head" or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.
FROM: U.S. LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
ChemCam sends digital ‘thumbs up’
Martian landing area could be a boon for scientific study
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, August 8, 2012—Members of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover ChemCam team got a digital thumbs up about the operational readiness of their instrument just hours after the rover landed on Martian soil late Sunday evening.


Los Alamos National Laboratory planetary scientist Roger Wiens, Principal Investigator of the ChemCam Team, confirmed that the instrument sent word to its handlers on Earth that it was alive and healthy.


"Following the fantastic landing of Curiosity on Mars, ChemCam proceeded with an aliveness test within an hour of landing," Wiens announced. "This was essentially the same routine as performed five months earlier in the middle of its cruise (to Mars). All systems are go!"


The aliveness check means that, as far as the international team of scientists is concerned, ChemCam can begin its next task of transmitting photographic images of the rover as a system check.


The ChemCam instrument combines a high-resolution camera powerful enough to view a human hair from seven feet away with a high-power laser that can zap rocks from a distance of as much as 23 feet to determine their composition. If everything goes according to plan, ChemCam could fire its first laser pulses at a Martian rock on Sol 10 or 11 (August 18 or 19).


Because Curiosity’s mission is scheduled to last an entire Martian year, or 98 Earth weeks, the MSL science team—comprised of members from each of the rover’s 10 instruments—is proceeding slowly at first to ensure that the vehicle is ready and able to make its slow road trip on a geological sightseeing trip through Gale crater and the slopes of Mount Sharp.


The rover seems to have landed in a good spot within the crater, Wiens said.
"The idea is that the gravel we’re seeing is alluvium coming down from the rim of the crater," he said. "The alluvium from the rim is potentially more ancient than Mount Sharp," which some have suggested holds a billion years or more of Martian geological history within its strata.


Some members of the ChemCam team see the alluvial pebbles as a unique, drive-by study opportunity. Los Alamos post-doctoral researcher Nina Lanza has previously studied rock varnish on Earth rocks. The dark varnish appears on rocks in arid locations like the desert southwest. The weathered coating, while extremely thin, may provide clues about whether Mars once harbored ancient life.


"Rock varnish on Earth is not clearly understood," Lanza said. "It’s not yet certain whether a biological component is necessary for its formation."


The ability to study extraterrestrial rock varnish, if no indications of bacterial life are present on Mars, could help scientists better understand terrestrial processes by which these varnishes form on rock, or varnishes could serve as a possible confirmatory test that life was once present at locations beyond Earth and Mars.


ChemCam’s tiny bursts of laser energy can gently vaporize the coating bits at a time until it reaches the pristine rock below. The data from ChemCam’s laser and spectrometer can probe the makeup of rock varnish, or indicate to researchers whether the varnish is contaminated with layers of material from other weather-related geological processes.


"ChemCam is the perfect instrument to see these types of subtle chemistry changes through the surface of rocks," Lanza said.

Throughout the Curiosity rover’s mission, ChemCam has the ability to sample thousands of locations on Mars. The instrument is a collaboration between research organizations within the United States and France. More than 45 LANL scientists, students and other personnel comprise the entire ChemCam team.


Photo Caption:
Researchers from LANL and the French Space Agency examine data from the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover from inside the ChemCam Operations Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Monday, Aug. 6, 2012, less than a day after the rover landed on Mars. The ChemCam team received signals indicating that the instrument is healthy and all systems are ready to go. Photo Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory/James E. Rickman