Mars Rover Curiosity
Curiosity's hand-cam snaps some new photos that put Instagram filters to shame

Ready to Roll This is Curiosity's wheel, photographed by the Mars Hand Lend Imager (MAHLI) instrument. And there you can see the rim of Gale Crater in the distance. And th- wait, what is THAT BLACK DOT? Click here for a ginormous closeup of the speck. (It's just a dust grain.) NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

The Mars rover Curiosity is still busy checking itself out, photographing its wheels and undercarriage after taking a lovely self-portrait the other day sol. No, this was not edited with the Instagram Earlybird filter.

The ground at Gale Crater is made of pretty compact, fine-grained stuff, as you can see from the rusty-colored dust on the wheels. That’s good because the rover won’t sink into the sand, but it might make it hard for her to scoop up the dirt when the time comes.

Those holes in the wheels, on the far side of the wheel in this image, form the rover’s visual odometry, spelling JPL in Morse code.

Curiosity is downloading thousands of pictures of itself and its surroundings, completing a few new checkouts before she rolls toward a rock outcropping called Glenelg, probably sometime in the next couple Mars-weeks.

8 Comments

I am sure there is a Curiosity twin on Earth we all can take picture of its wheels\tires.

Can we please, get more pictures of MARS, thank you!

For the latest Mars Rover Cartoon:
http://mikemock.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/mars-rover/

Am I the only one that see's 2 UFO's in the sky?

Arka3L,
Yes to your question.
lol

And here I am, the idiot who actually looked up...

And I agree, Robot, lets come back down to Mars and stop worrying about Curiosities A... undercarriage

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Mark Twain

It is so funny, if in the picture above, we all saw dead road kill squished under the tire, lol... snort.

Static…… Aaaa Houston…… static.
Yes….. static.
We have a problem….. static.
Yes…. Static.
Well we went to Mars in search of life and we killed it…….

….. static!

I'm not sure if your comments were in sarcasm, but please click the link that provides the full size image, and look at the two black spots in the sky...

Arka3L,
I enlarged the images and yes I see back specks\spots in the sky. My guess is, its Martian birds or dust on the lens cover or lens of the picture. Consider on Earth of all the other life that came prior to making birds and currently exist around and dependent upon birds, if it was birds, there be a whole lot other Martian life about. But you referred to it as UFOs(ALIENS), as in another life flying about the Mars sky, which brings me to the same place, there be a whole lot of other life about on Mars, should that be true.

I think it’s a little dust debris on the picture or lens.



July 2013: The Future Of Flight

The incredible innovations, like drone swarms and perpetual flight, bringing aviation into the world of tomorrow. Plus: today's greatest sci-fi writers predict the future, the science behind the summer's biggest blockbusters, a Doctor Who-themed DIY 'bot, the organs you can do without, and much more.


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