Reminder about Tuesday's telecon

Just reminding myself and anyone else that there will be a teleconference for an update on Curiosity's status. You can listen in on Tuesday (10/30/2012) via ustream or NASA's audio feed. The conference will start at 1830 hrs GMT.

JPL Curiosity video update: Zapping Stonehenge

I always enjoy the Jet Propulsion Lab's video presentations. This one was posted on Youtube just yesterday and provides a good update on what the ChemCam instrument has been doing this past few days including zapping an unusual feature dubbed 'Stonehenge' (because it looks similar to the ancient monument in England) with its laser. But why is it like that? Play the video to find out!



Also there will be yet another telecon on Tuesday (October 30) next week at 1830 hrs GMT.

UPDATE: I found the image taken by Curiosity's scientific camera (left eye Mastcam) of the interesting feature mentioned above. It was taken on sol 72 or about 9 days ago as of this writing:

(NASA/JPL/MSSS)

Zapping away at Rocknest

I noticed subframe colour images coming down from the 100mm Mastcam so I decided to take a break from reading internal medicine and stitching them up. The results:

True colour mosaic of 'Rocknest' sol 76 (NASA/JPL/MSSS/mosaic by me)

What we're seeing here is the cluster of volcanic rocks (most likely vesicular basalt because it looks 'bubbly' attesting to the gases it once held when it was still molten rock) aptly named 'Rocknest'. Notice the drifts of sand around them. They act as a sort of wind breaker and any dust/light aeolian material is dropped off around them. The drift that Curiosity is investigating right now stems from these rocks influencing their environment.

The ChemCam instrument is also being used to investigate these rocks. We can see the results of yesterday's 'shootings' in the image returned below:

The small bullseye in the middle is in the order of microns in diameter (NASA/JPL/LANL)