[meteorite-list] Latest Selfie from NASA Mars Rover Shows Wide Context

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4489

Latest Selfie from NASA Mars Rover Shows Wide Context
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 24, 2015

-- The latest self-portrait covers the key "Pahrump Hills" sites

-- Taken beside January's "Mojave" drilling site, the image also shows 
the mission's next planned drilling site

A sweeping view of the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity 
rover has been working for five months, surrounds the rover in Curiosity's 
latest self-portrait.

The selfie scene is assembled from dozens of images taken by the Mars 
Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the rover's robotic arm.

Pahrump Hills is an outcrop of the bedrock that forms the basal layer 
of Mount Sharp, at the center of Mars' Gale Crater. The mission has examined 
the outcrop with a campaign that included a "walkabout" survey and then 
increasingly detailed levels of inspection. The rover climbed from the 
outcrop's base to higher sections three times to create vertical profiles 
of the rock structures and chemistry, and to select the best targets for 
sample-collection drilling.

The component images for this self-portrait were taken in late January, 
while Curiosity was at a drilling site called "Mojave 2." At that site, 
the mission collected its second drilled sample of Pahrump  Hills for 
laboratory analysis. The first sample was collected in September from 
a site called "Confidence Hills." Since leaving the Mojave site, Curiosity 
has driven to another location visible in the scene, where drilling at 
a site called "Telegraph Peak" is planned.

Curiosity took previous self-portraits with the MAHLI camera at three 
sites it explored before reaching the base of Mount Sharp.

"Compared with the earlier Curiosity selfies, we added extra frames for 
this one so we could see the rover in the context of the full Pahrump 
Hills campaign," said rover team member Kathryn Stack  at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "From the Mojave site, we could include 
every stop we've made during the campaign."

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient 
habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions.

Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, developed, built and operates 
MAHLI. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, 
built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate 
in Washington.

For more information about Curiosity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:

http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity

http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity


Media Contact

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov 

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

2015-066