{"id":3382,"date":"2019-05-21T21:35:22","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T18:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/?p=3382"},"modified":"2019-05-21T21:35:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T18:35:26","slug":"mars-curiosity-celebrates-sol-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/?p=3382","title":{"rendered":"Mars Curiosity Celebrates Sol 2,000"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"

This mosaic taken by NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover looks uphill at Mount Sharp, which Curiosity has been climbing since 2014. Highlighted in white is an area with clay-bearing rocks that scientists are eager to explore; it could shed additional light on the role of water in creating Mount Sharp. The mosaic was assembled from dozens of images taken by Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam). It was taken on Sol 1931 back in January.
Credits: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover just hit a new milestone: its \ntwo-thousandth Martian day, or sol, on the Red Planet. An image mosaic \ntaken by the rover in January offers a preview of what comes next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looming over the image is Mount Sharp, the mound Curiosity has been \nclimbing since September 2014. In the center of the image is the rover’s\n next big, scientific target: an area scientists have studied from orbit\n and have determined contains clay minerals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formation of clay minerals requires water. Scientists have \nalready determined that the lower layers of Mount Sharp formed within \nlakes that once spanned Gale Crater\u2019s floor. The area ahead could offer \nadditional insight into the presence of water, how long it may have \npersisted, and whether the ancient environment may have been suitable \nfor life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiosity’s science team is eager to analyze rock samples pulled from\n the clay-bearing rocks seen in the center of the image. The rover \nrecently started testing its drill<\/a>\n again on Mars for the first time since December 2016. A new process for\n drilling rock samples and delivering them to the rover’s onboard \nlaboratories is still being refined in preparation for scientific \ntargets like the area with clay minerals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curiosity landed in August 2012 and has traveled 11.6 miles (18.7 \nkilometers) in that time. In 2013, the mission found evidence of an \nancient freshwater-lake environment that offered all the basic chemical \ningredients for microbial life. Since reaching Mount Sharp in 2014, \nCuriosity has examined environments where both water<\/a> and wind<\/a>\n have left their marks. Having studied more than 600 vertical feet of \nrock with signs of lakes and groundwater, Curiosity’s international \nscience team concluded that habitable conditions lasted for at least millions of years<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars \nScience Laboratory Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, \nWashington, and built the project’s Curiosity rover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover just hit a new milestone: its two-thousandth Martian day, or sol, on the Red Planet. An image mosaic taken by the rover in January offers a preview of what comes next. Looming over the image is Mount Sharp, the mound Curiosity has been climbing since September 2014. In the center of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3384,"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3382\/revisions\/3384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/energyholding.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}