Sol 288: Press release tomorrow (30.5.2013)

Radiation Assessment Detector on Earth.
The instrument can detect high energy particles
which reach the Martian surface from
various sources including the sun. (Commons)

NASA has announced a press release that will be held tomorrow to announce results pertaining to radiation studies being conducted on the surface with the rover's RAD instrument. From the release, the talk will include the following key speakers:

-- Donald M. Hassler, RAD principal investigator and program director, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
-- Cary Zeitlin, principal scientist, Southwest Research Institute
-- Eddie Semones, spaceflight radiation health officer, NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston
-- Chris Moore, deputy director of advanced exploration systems, NASA Headquarters, Washington

As usual, you can listen in to the press conference tomorrow starting from 1830 GMT on JPL's ustream channel or from NASA audio.

Meanwhile on Mars, Curiosity has fed samples into the analysis instruments SAM and CheMin from the recently drilled rock dubbed Cumberland. We shouldn't expect anything new (though there may be yet another surprise of a discovery) because the rock is more or less similar to the previous drilling target. If anything, this one will help improve the previous measurements of the other rock, hence the similarity of targets is by design.

Mars Science Laboratory: Time Lapse - Sol 0 - Sol 281

I noticed this video on my twitter feed but completely forgot to talk about it here! And that's really bad because its so cool!

Using front hazard avoidance camera images, Karl Sanford made a wonderful time lapse video of Curiosity's entire journey in Gale crater since touching down in August last year. Its another example of how making data open allows ordinary citizens to engage with an incredible scientific missions and in the process, help to sensitise people about the science, exploration and inquiry. Brilliant!

Sol 280: Drilling Cumberland

Yestersol (sol 279) was drilling day and once again the rover's tool has got obtained another sample of Martian rock. Truly astonishing! MAHLI images were taken of the drill hole afterwards. Here is one below:

MAHLI view of the drill hole (NASA/JPL/MSSS)

A neat blinking image showing the before and after drilling scenes helps to give an idea of how much shaking is actually involved. Notice the changed positions of pebbles and gravel in the image below.

Sol 275 compared to sol 279 view (NASA/JPL/MSSS)

Judging from the image timestamps on the raw imagery site, I estimate the time to drill took no more than 30 minutes. Below is another gif animation of the entire day of activity for sol 279 as viewed by the right eye of the front hazard avoidance cameras. You'll notice the drill as a 3 pronged looking device with the 2 side prongs contacting the surface for stability during drilling. The prong in the middle is the drill head itself which also doubles as a core sampler for sampling the material collected by the drill threads. This sample will later on be given to the analytical instruments CheMin and SAM for further analysis.

A day on Mars with Curiosity.
Observant readers will notice that at some
point in the animation the rover
looks like it has been lifted slightly
by the way the frame shifts upwards.
This occurs due to the amount of downward force
applied by the robotic arm on the rock in order
to maintain stability during drilling. Thus the rover is lifted
slightly as a result.
 (NASA/JPL/animation by Abraham Samma)