[meteorite-list] Curiosity Rover Explores 'Yellowknife Bay'

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2013 14:49:02 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201301042249.r04Mn21x009523_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-003

Curiosity Rover Explores 'Yellowknife Bay'
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 04, 2013

Mars Science Laboratory Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. - After imaging during the holidays, NASA's Mars rover
Curiosity resumed driving Jan. 3 and pulled within arm's reach of a
sinuous rock feature called "Snake River."

Snake River is a thin curving line of darker rock cutting through
flatter rocks and jutting above sand. Curiosity's science team plans to
get a closer look at it before proceeding to other nearby rocks.

"It's one piece of the puzzle," said the mission's project scientist,
John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
"It has a crosscutting relationship to the surrounding rock and appears
to have formed after the deposition of the layer that it transects."

The drive during the mission's 147th Martian day, or sol, on the Red
Planet took Curiosity about 10 feet (3 meters) northwestward and brought
the mission's total driving distance to 2,303 feet (702 meters). The
rover is within a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay," which is
a flatter and lighter-toned type of terrain from what the mission
crossed during its first four months inside Gale Crater.

During a holiday break for the rover team, Curiosity stayed at a
location within Yellowknife Bay from which the rover took images of its
surroundings. The team is evaluating possible first targets for use of
Curiosity's hammering drill in coming weeks. The drill will collect
powdered samples from the interior of rocks for analysis by instruments
inside the rover.

"We had no surprises over the holidays," said the mission's project
manager, Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena.
"Now, Curiosity is back on the move. The area the rover is in looks good
for our first drilling target."

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess
whether areas inside Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment
for microbes. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the project for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

More information about Curiosity is online at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook
at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at:
http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

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

2013-003
Received on Fri 04 Jan 2013 05:49:02 PM PST