NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Reroutes Away From ‘Gator-Back’ Rocks
To avoid patches of knife-edged rocks, the mission has taken an alternative path up Mount Sharp.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover spent most of March climbing the “Greenheugh Pediment” – a gentle slope capped by rubbly sandstone. The rover briefly summited this feature’s north face two years ago; now on the pediment’s southern side, Curiosity has navigated back onto the pediment to explore it more fully.
But on March 18, the mission team saw an unexpected terrain change ahead and realized they would have to turn around: The path before Curiosity was carpeted with more wind-sharpened rocks, or ventifacts, than they have ever seen in the rover’s nearly 10 years on the Red Planet.
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