{"id":26169,"date":"2026-06-24T04:53:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T04:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/curiosity-blog-sols-4927-4933-lets-drive-to-that-smooth-area-nasa-science-gov\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T04:53:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T04:53:03","slug":"curiosity-blog-sols-4927-4933-lets-drive-to-that-smooth-area-nasa-science-gov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/curiosity-blog-sols-4927-4933-lets-drive-to-that-smooth-area-nasa-science-gov\/","title":{"rendered":"Curiosity Blog, Sols 4927\u20134933: Let\u2019s Drive to That Smooth Area – NASA Science (.gov)"},"content":{"rendered":"

4 min read
Mars Science Laboratory Mission Team Members
By Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK
Earth planning date: Thursday, June 18, 2026
In the area Curiosity is currently exploring, the science team has mapped several areas with different-looking surface texture on the orbital images. If you wanted to have a look yourself at what there is to see, check the \u201cWhere is Curiosity?\u201d map.<\/a> You\u2019ll discover different shades of orange and beige as well as more rough and more smooth-looking textures. This is what the geomorphologists in our team use to map the areas for exploration by the rover. Of course, we then supplement this all with ground-based images, including bespoke \u201cdrive direction imaging,\u201d which is taken after each drive by the Mast Camera. Drive planning is done using a combination of all this information. So there shouldn\u2019t be any surprises, right?
On Monday the team planned three sols in preparation for a Thursday planning to account for the U.S. federal holiday weekend. The workspace turned out to be a little spiky, so we could not find an area we could DRT. APXS still found one good bedrock target, \u201cRio Baker,\u201d which also had MAHLI documentation. In addition, ChemCam investigated \u201cRica Aventura,\u201d a textured bedrock, and \u201cTabebuia,\u201d a darker-looking individual block, using its LIBS and conducted a passive spectral observation on a second dark float block called \u201cLago Ranco.\u201d Of course, the team also wanted to look into the distance with ChemCam remote imaging, extending our investigation of the Cordillera base outcrop.
Imaging is always high on the list. In Monday\u2019s plan Mastcam is looking into the modern dunes with the \u201cTacaza\u201d mosaic, and with more mosaics looking forward to the future parking areas, some of which looked really smooth from that vantage point. We also continue our environmental and atmospheric observations looking for dust devils, the opacity of the atmosphere, and monitoring pressure and temperature. After all this, the rover drove about 35 meters (about 115 feet) to an area that looked really smooth in all images we had available at that point. So we were hoping for a good spot to deploy the DRT, but didn\u2019t think we could be in for a surprise.
The drive ended exactly as planned, spot-on in the middle of that \u2014 from a distance \u2014 smooth-looking area. But when we opened the post-drive images on Thursday morning, we were all reacting with a lot of surprise. From up close, the parking spot looks anything but smooth. You can see the surprise in the title image of this blog. There are polygons, veins, lamination, and probably more, once we inspect the higher-resolution images taken today. \u201cHigher-resolution\u201d is the key for why we were in for such a surprise! The features are quite small, a few centimeters across, and therefore we could not see them in the orbital images or from a distance in our navigation and mast camera images. The camera resolution from a distance just isn\u2019t enough to see them. But up close, the terrain revealed all its beauty! And I am sure there will be more in the even higher resolution of today\u2019s MAHLI and ChemCam RMI imager images!
So, what did we plan after we caught our breath on Thursday? First, you guessed it, images, images, and more images. Mastcam takes a full panorama with its \u201cleft eye\u201d<\/a> and adds a range of closer-up mosaics with its higher-resolution \u201cright eye.\u201d In addition there is a ChemCam Remote Micro Imager image to document structures further afield at high resolution. ChemCam is investigating three targets using LIBS: \u201cRio Chimore\u201d is a lighter-toned band; you can see some of those in the cover image of this blog, too. The other two LIBS targets are \u201cRio de Lava,\u201d a vein target, and \u201cRio de Salta,\u201d one of the polygons. APXS is also looking at the bedrock and the ridges, at the targets \u201cPampa Grande\u201d and \u201cIquique Ridge.\u201d MAHLI is having the above-mentioned close \u201chand lens\u201d look. Let\u2019s see what we will discover when we get those images.
Finally, Curiosity drove up the hill along very smooth-looking terrain that is just littered with tiny polygons. Let\u2019s see if we are in for another surprise reverberating around all our offices \u2014 and across two continents, as I had the good fortune to be among the first ones, here in England (Or maybe it was our French ChemCam colleagues, who are in a time zone one hour ahead of me?). Whichever it is, this terrain has a lot to say about the geologic history of Mars!<\/p>\n

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4 min readMars Science Laboratory Mission Team MembersBy Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UKEarth planning date: Thursday, June 18, 2026In the area Curiosity is currently exploring, the science team has mapped several areas with different-looking surface texture on the orbital images. If you wanted to have a look yourself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}