PASADENA, Calif. — The photo-snapping rover Curiosity returned
another postcard from Mars on Thursday — the first 360-degree color panorama of
Gale Crater.
Scientists admired the sweeping vista — red dust,
dark sand dunes and tan-hued rocks. In the distance was the base of Mount
Sharp, a three-mile-high mountain rising from the crater floor, where the
six-wheel rover planned to go.
VIDEO | The Post’s Marc Kaufman on the successful
“mission of the
Curiosity is equipped with a full array of
instruments aimed to determine if the Red Planet was ever capable of support
ing life.
“It’s very exciting to think about getting there, but it is quite a
ways away,” said mission scientist Dawn Sumner of the University of California,
Davis.
Though it’s the sharpest view yet of the landing
site, the panorama was stitched together from thumbnails while scientists
waited for better quality pictures to be downloaded.
Since safely landing Sunday night, Curiosity has
dazzled scientists with peeks of its new home that at first glance seems
similar to California’s Mojave Desert. The initial pictures were fuzzy and
black-and-white.
Earlier this week, the rover raised its mast
containing high-definition and navigation cameras that have provided better
views.
“It’s beautiful just to finally see the colors in the terrain,” said
Jim Bell of Arizona State University, who is part of the mission.
The car-size rover remained healthy and busy
testing its various instruments. Several pebbles landed on the rover’s deck
next to its radiation sensor during the final seconds of landing as it was
lowered to the ground, but project managers said the stones posed no risk.
Curiosity “continues to behave basically
flawlessly,” said mission manager Mike Watkins of the NASA Propulsion
Laboratory, which manages the $2.5 billion mission.
Over the weekend, the rover will take a break so
its computers can get a software upgrade in a process similar to a laptop
having periodic updates to its operating systems. The upgrade will take several
days. Data download will continue during that time, but the rover won’t be
doing anything new.
During its two-year mission, the roaming
laboratory will analyze rocks and soil in search of the chemical building
blocks of life, and determine whether there were habitable conditions where
microbes could thrive. As high-tech as Curiosity is, it can’t directly look for
past or present life; future missions would be needed to answer that question.
Curiosity arrived on Mars Sunday night after
traveling more than eight months and 352 million miles. Because of its heft, it
couldn’t land using air bags like its predecessors. Curiosity made a precision
landing, relying on a heat shield, supersonic parachute, retrorockets and cables
that lowered it inside Gale Crater.
Since the thrilling landing, the pace on the
surface has been deliberately slower.
Curiosity is the most complex interplanetary rover
ever designed, and engineers are taking their time performing health checkups.
The rover will not make its first drive or move its robotic arm for weeks.
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